Thomas wrote:blatham wrote: That is either purposefully obtuse or simply contrarian to make a cheap point. If you wish to talk seriously, let me know.
The "cheap point", if you want to call it that, is that the statement you want me to agree to is void of content unless you define "the regular media" and what "doing its job" means. As far as I am concerned, I have seen plenty of good reporting in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Commentators of these newspapers disagreed on whether the war on Iraq was worth fighting, and whether Bush's budgets were sound, but I didn't get the impression that these three newspapers had failed to do their jobs. I don't watch American TV in Germany so can't comment on that part of the media, but I disagree with Krugman's statement when phrased as rigorously as he phrased it.
thomas
"Regular media" and "doing its job" are Krugman's words of course. So anything I say comes out of my understanding/assumptions about what Krugman himself refers to, and of how I see things myself.
That you are somewhere else and cannot view American TV disadvantages you in this conversation. That's applicable to radio as well, of course.
We've had related conversations before on matters of the press/news media, and we don't agree on certain issues because we don't agree on the proper role of a press or a government. Clearly, Krugman feels that the media has fallen short, and have fallen short in both what they cover and how rigorously they cover it. The recent interview between Bush and the Irish newsperson points to the difference between how the press in GB deal with political leaders and how the American press now deals with its leaders (that's been obvious to many of us for a long time).
Since things have gone so badly in Iraq, various media here (such as the NY Times) have turned slightly introspective and have asked themselves why they behaved with such trust and deference to politicians, and why they did not act more independently and critically. I think they've got a long way to go before they really face up to the answers on those questions.
But part of the answer sits with this particular administration, who have been masterful at bullying, denying access and information except to preferred (sycophanitic) sources. Another part of the story sits with the military who have likewise become adept at controlling media which we saw begin to bloom with the attack on Noriega in Panama where the press were kept out, for their own security, of course. Lessons were learned in Viet Nam about the real dangers to any military agenda where a press was free to move about and report. Another part of the story, and one you haven't been particularly interested in, is the purposeful and strategic control of the news media here by an activist group working from the extreme right. This is pretty well understood and documented (even as sites like townhall or networks like Fox or radio like Limbaugh suggest that this is all paranoid fantasy) but one has to bother reading about it.
There's a cumulative consequence to these factors (and some others in the mix) which is what Krugman and I and others refer to when we say that the media has NOT been doing its job, and that democracy is in crisis in the US.
Perhaps you turn away from Krugman in this particular column because what he is saying sounds too much Moore himself, or like Chomsky. But we'd certainly disagree on whether Dick Cheney ("I think Fox gives the most balanced view of the news") or Noam is going to be describing actual states of affairs regarding the media.
ahh the joys of biodiversity 
