This looks interesting, but -- typically -- it is outward looking, when the media need to start looking within. The problem the media face is not from without, because if these people were smarter and more professional they could deal with external challenges, as their ancestors (I shudder to imply that Brian Williams somehow decended from Walter Cronkite, but there's no other way to put it) did throughout the Cold War -- a much more difficult environment than the "War on Terror." The problem is the kind of people who enter journalism these days, and the reasons they do it. On TV you have a bunch of Peter Jennings clones and blond and brunette barbie-doll types, who are clearly there because of the way they look rather than their journalistic skills; in the print world, which is becoming more and more marginalized anyway, people seem to be angling for their next book deal rather than for a big, important story. In short, journalism has become trivialized; it's about entertainment and moneymaking more than providing accurate and useful information to the populace. Any serious examination of the state of our media ought to start with that. Of course, if it did, it wouldn't be on Frontline, or anywhere else where someone would actually get a chance to see it, and people like Safire wouldn't allow themselves to be interviewed for it.

Bunch of nattering nabobs of negativity.(classic Agnew line for you young'ins).Margaret Warners piece from Venezuela yesterday was prefaced by the huge Chevron ad. Not that it tainted her journalistic integrity but..

"In short, journalism has become trivialized"

Not exactly. Rather, journalists allowed themselves to become trivialized.

During 2002, I attended a panel discussion at princeton featuring several well-known D.C. journalists as well as William Kristol and Mike Can't-remember-his-last-name-was Clinton's-spokesperson. The q&a was very pointed about their non-coverage of several events.

They explained that access was so difficult thast they pretty much wrote what they were allowed to because if they deviated, they'd lose the access they had.

It appears to me that in general the press has been so demoralized that they've forgotten what they are supposed to be doing.

Combine that with the corporate owners like Murdoch and it's disaster! (Of course Murdoch would like to see the pres. sweepstakes between Clinton and Gingrich - can you imagine a better story in terms of selling newsprint and tv time?)

The biggest difference between Cronkite, Huntly, Brinkley etc is that the news was a public service. Now with the news under the entertainment divisions and expected to be a profit center, we've gotten such as Katie Couric impersonating a serious journalist saying Condi Rice is scarey smart because she rattles off facts and figures without notes.

it just makes one want to duck and cover until it all passes. (Non-boomers, that's what we had to do in school periodically to practice for when "they" dropped the bomb)