The importance of the "YOU report -WE decide" concept can hardly be overstated and is hugely under-appreciated. Take a break and try this instructive thought experiment: Imagine how different our election process would look if for the first 3-4 months ideas and supporting arguments were grouped by subject and presented for evaluation with no attribution, a la carte, sort of like we’d like our cable choices to be. Effects of money, smears and spinning on voter deliberations would be effectively minimized. What a concept; ideas and solutions evaluated on actual merit with minimal distraction, deliberate or otherwise. Once a clear picture of that idealized process has been enjoyed, start adding one by one the usual batch of ... More »

The efforts of the blogsphere will be looked on in 20 years as the only rein we have on big business and big media. The ability of an individual to call to account for the actions of those in the 4th estate can not be underestimated, we just need a larger megaphone to share the news. I think the benefits of the 1st amendment that professional journalists have extended (to cover for protection of sources) has a reciprocal responsibility to report the events or issues of the day without filtering. This blog indicates that this responsibility has been ignored by Fox Disinformation and the ABC good ole boys network. We can only hope we have more bloggers stand up and demand an accounting from those priviledged to use the nations ... More »

Provides some good evidence for "thought control" being exercised by media bigs. Despite the fact that a majority of the public is anti-war, anti-war candidates are now excluded from the debates. If no voices for peace and Iraq withdrawal are heard, will the public think there is something wrong with their "thinking"?

This opinion piece at first convinced me it was by the prolific Scott Ott writing under another name. But it is not up to his standards. Beyond that it is nio more than a screed on behalf of Ron Paul, presumably by one of his isolationist supporters. In fact the media are very diverse, in the case of the two networks in question, Fox right of center and ABC equally left of center in all research studies. But how about the "debates" moderated by the likes of far-left figures such as Olberman and Mathews? The lack of coverage of any other media sources in this piece makes it poor journalism.

The truth as presented in this excellent article, one of many by Rory Oconnor, seriously hurts (all of us), as it should, but the major media are not interested - - because, you see, Oconnor is an Internet blogger, not a REAL journalist. The big story is in the newspapers and on TV , not the Internet, so Oconnor can be ignored. Right ?