Originally Posted By: alternaut
Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
You're consuming the wrong media. Try here, for example, instead. smile

You're right of course, but to speak like Kevin Drum, does it matter? The vast majority of the US population never sees—let alone reads—any of these alternative sources.

The real problem is that: getting a reasonable facsimile of a full factual accounting (including historical context, if need be) shouldn't require visiting underground websites, or high profile news agencies half-way around the world, or channel 1728 (?). There should be at least one (TV station) here in the lower 48 which provides as much... preferably a broadcast network with a low number such as 7.

Anyway, while i was fishing around for something else, i came across this:

This is a portion of a speech (entitled “The President and the Press”) which John F. Kennedy gave before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, on April 27, 1961...


[click the cc button for closed captions]

[excerpt starting at 5:52]
Originally Posted By: JFK

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation—an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people—to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well—the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers—I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: “An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed—and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment—the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution—not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants”—but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.


So to summarize: the media has a Constitutionally protected obligation to educate the American people until they understand all about what's going down (short of highly classified national security information).