This is an Editorial, This is only an Editorial...

22% of American’s Agree: They Like Being Lied To.

“NEW YORK A survey to be released Monday reveals a wide gap on many media issues between a group of journalists and the general public. In one finding, 43% of the public says the press has too much freedom, while only 3% of journalists agree. And just 14% of the public can name "freedom of the press" as a guarantee in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in the major poll conducted by the University of Connecticut Department of Public Policy.

Six in ten among the public feel the media show bias in reporting the news, and 22% say the government should be allowed to censor the press. More than 7 in 10 journalists believe the media does a good or excellent job on accuracy -- but only 4 in 10 among the public feel that way. And a solid 53% of the public thinks stories with unnamed sources should not be published at all….

Earlier this year, a survey from the same department gained wide attention after it showed that American high schoolers had a rather flimsy grasp of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Half of the young people said they thought newspapers should not be able to publish stories without government approval. Stories about that survey appeared in hundreds of newspapers and it was even mentioned on the March 13 episode of the ABC drama "Boston Legal."

Sooooo...I guess the only thing we have to wait for is Fox News to change it’s name to “Truth”

That’s a Cold War joke for you youngn’s.

It’s been suggested that the appalling downturn in education funding, especially in inner city schools, was deliberate, a suggestion I scoffed at as paranoid.

I’m not scoffing now. It’s seems to have worked for the neo-conservative right just swell.

It’s double plus ungood when there is a large group of Americans who believe that the only way to “keep this country great” is to ignore the very principles it was founded on.

I think I’m going to be sick.

Bloggers Are Not Journalists, We’re Citizens.

Another aspect of this same article bring up the question whether web logs should be considered a news source and bloggers journalists. Unless the blogger is researching to create stories in short, actually reporting new news , then I would have to agree with the journalist community: No.

I think the confusion comes in the mix up in the mind of the American Public between an article and an editorial. An article is (idealistically) a non-biased report of the facts. An editorial is a subjective interpretation of those facts. What you read on the front page of the New York Times is an article. What you read on my blog is an editorial, a commentary, an opinion, on the news that has already been reported. What you see on CNN Headline News is an “article”. What you see on the Bill O’Reiley show is an “editorial”. The majority of blogs are editorial columns, not news sources.

Now, does that mean blogs should be dismissed as frivolous mumblings of geeky cyber nation? Hell no. Blogs communicate and reflect the opinion of the American people and so have weight in and of themselves as voices of the American public free from the corporate interpretation/spin doctoring of todays’ larger media. This, the internet, is the pure deal: unfiltered public opinion.

So there. :P

Speaking of Articles...

White House challenges UK Iraq memo

Earlier this month, the Times of London published the minutes of a meeting of top British officials in mid-2002, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's staunchest ally in the Iraq war.
According to the minutes cited by the Times, a British official identified as "C" said that he had returned from a meeting in Washington and that "military action was now seen as inevitable" by U.S. officials.
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," the memo said, according to the newspaper.
The minutes also quoted the unnamed British official as saying the U.S. National Security Council had "no patience" with taking the dispute to the United Nations and "no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record."
"There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action," the official said, according to the minutes published by the Times.”

Bush is definitely resolute. Resolutely stupid.

Supporting Our Troops in A Way I Hadn’t Thought Of

Operation Paperback

Or

Books For Soldiers

Sending books to troops overseas.

Kewl!

Along with, of course, the USO