Reply #49: You make excellent points about new media, but do you get informational input... [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

from DU's LBN? If you do, you are getting information from MSM. The fact is that "corporate media," at least for now, has the money and resources to report news that independent media can more often than not only comment on. That corporate news is commented on by independent sources may save us yet, but dismissal of all corporate news (and dismissal of the opinions of those who watch or read it) is, IMO, wrongheaded. I look forward to a day when more stories come from within the independent media, but I wouldn't, at this point, rely on it as my only source of news.

Some of what is reported in the MSM is pure propaganda, some is useless, some is essential to our knowledge of what is going on, and that includes damage the Bush regime has done to our nation and the world.

Here are some of my DU posts, from MSM, in the last 48 hours:

NYT/AP: FBI Watched Eugene McCarthy Anti-Hoover Effort

NYT: Russia Working to Limit Election Observers

CNN: Obama questions Romney's Osama slip of tongue

MSNBC puts a political spin on California fire coverage (Value of Bush's coming to California questioned on MSNBC in light of his failure to help New Orleans re. Katrina.)

NYT: NASA Faces House Hearings on Air Safety

NYT op-ed: "If Mukasey cannot say that the President must obey statute, he ought not be Attorney General."

NYT/Reuters: U.S. General Outlines Baghdad Security Handover Plan (We can dismiss the outline, but not if we don't see it reported.)

NYT, page one: Use of Contractors by State Dept. Has Soared: But few officials oversee contracts

NYT editorial, Tilting the Scales of Justice: Political prosecution in Gonzales's Justice Department

NYT: Maureen Dowd, Madness as Method: Dick Cheney's craziness IS U.S. foreign policy

Reuters: Gore says 2007 pivotal year in climate change fight

WP, Froomkin: Bush's Brazen Request -- for another $46 billion; What explains his cocksureness?

WP/AP: Space Shuttle Discovery Blasts Off

NYT/AP: Former GOP Attorney General Thornburgh charges DOJ political prosecution in Pennsylvania

CNN: Obama aims fire at Clinton over Iran vote: Sends postcard to Iowa voters

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I think I'm bright enough to look at MSM and not be fooled by it. I come here to DU, and get easy access to a daily dose of independent media, and the opinions of DUers, which I consider as essential as the news gathered by other sources. I don't think reading the NYT or watching some political coverage on MSNBC diminishes my ability to choose a Presidential candidate, or even steers me toward certain ones. I consider it useful, as well, to be aware of what kind of news the majority of Americans are seeing (if they're seeing any at all). And that dose of reality, I admit, might influence my choice of candidate -- as that candidate will be competing for election in the real world out there.

And just a P.S., on the "horse race" -- Some citizens, some DUers, are political junkies. They are interested in the race as a race, in the process. Some of us have worked, and may be working now, on campaigns. To be interested in strategy, in polling, in what makes a successful candidate does not mean that there's no interest in policy and governance. What politician was it who said, "First, you have to get elected"?