Get It?

Rick Perlstein reports on his participation in a conference panel today with mainstream media reporters discussing blogs and the media. The entire piece is a very good read. Here's is a summary illustration to give you a flavor:

The q&a session illustrated the point. Someone asked the Washington reporters on the panel whether the sense in their newsrooms was that, as the International Atomic Energy Agency maintains, that Iran is nowhere close to having nuclear weapons, and may in fact not even be attempting to get nuclear waeapons. Or did their newsrooms trust the administration, which makes the opposite claim? Schuster affirmed that there was a "great deal of skepticism among reporters" on the administration's Iran claims. He puffed up a little with pride, and said that's why you don't see many reports on Iran these days: because they've evaluated the administration's claims and found them wanting - undeserving of attention.

Froomkin [one of my favorite bloggers] got the last word. He said: that's precisely the point. You don't respond to administration lies about Iran by not running Iran stories. You respond to it by doing stories - about adminstration lies about Iran. (my emphasis)

Sometimes it takes a blogger to see what's in front of a mainstream reporter's face.

A-freakin'-men. The Washington journalists have a total lack of hunger for the story. They've been neutered by something ... laziness, affluence, corporate control, editors, insiderness .... something. And it's not serving us or them well. They're losing readership in droves concurrent with their credibility and the nation is suffering from ignorance.