Nation Topics - Journalists and Journalism | The Nation

The willingness of our most powerful media companies to defer to
pressure from the White House is deeply disconcerting. In the name of
national security, the Bush team repeatedly demonstrates its contempt
for the media and for normative standards of truth.

Bush is on the defensive. The GOP is mired in corruption. The media are waking up. Civil liberties are beginning to matter. See? Good things did happen in 2005.

This just in: The Pentagon offers yet another lesson in democracy. Just don't look for any bylines.

Bush brings a robust simplicity to the business of news
management: Where possible, buy journalists to turn out favorable
stories. And if you think you can get away with it, shoot them or blow
them up.

Under pressure from Wall Street, newspaper journalism is being
frog-marched out of the media marketplace. And once it's gone, how will
we know anything?

With professionals at the top forced out and replaced by GOP
fundraisers, the right-wing takeover of the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting is now plain to see. Though CPB's Inspector General has
exposed former chair Kenneth Tomlinson's ethical transgressions, what
else are they hiding?

It's one thing for our State Department to plant phony stories in the
media or jam broadcasts in Cuba. It's quite another for conservative
policy analyst Frank Gaffney bolster's George Bush's grudge against Al
Jazeera by arguing that it was "imperative that enemy media be taken
down."

Given the Administration's record of attacking Al Jazeera verbally and
militarily, is it conceivable that President Bush tried to convince
Tony Blair to bomb its international headquarters? Only publication of
an explosive memo will prove it.

Capitalizing on Bob Woodward's revelation that he was one of the first
to learn about Valerie Plame's CIA status, Scooter Libby's legal team
hopes that will get their client off the hook. That turkey won't fly.

Lack of candor is not surprising from Bush or Ahmad Chalabi, but why does the New York Times continue to struggle with the truth about Judith Miller? The Gray Lady might solve the problem by banning anonymous Administration sources in its news reports. If they're going to lie to us anyway, why not under their own names?