The inestimable Atrios laments the lack of awareness or acknowledgement among the press about the severity and difficulty of the recession.  It's something I've pondered for awhile, too.  I vividly remember the coverage of the thousands of people who lined up to apply for jobs at the then-new Chicago Sheraton Hotel in 1992.  In the 1960s, the press played a critical role in surfacing what was then the greatest income inequality and poverty in generations (today's conditions have far eclipsed those).  Contrast the silence on economic suffering with the attention lavished on the crypto-racist teabaggers, people whose primary political philosophy is "I've got mine, get yer own!"

Part of the reason is the success of the press, of course.  The newsmedia has become an elite institution, something it wasn't in the early years of television and radio.  The media elite are increasingly well-educated and well-paid, two things that tend to insulate you from the sufferening of the less fortunate. 

But even worse, I think we see in the current media insensitivity the real lasting impact of the Reagan years.  Reagan's chief domestic policy was "if you're poor, it's your fault."  Worse, he demonized people needing public assistance as "cadillac-driving welfare queens."  Under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, the Republican Congress, and W, poverty again became a moral failing, a convenient reason not to care about poverty and its deletrious effects on individuals and society.  Johnathan Chait's masterful takedown of Ayn Rand and her "philosophy" makes the same point.  If there's one trait the Teabaggers all share, it's a fierce defensiveness of their own status and success (even if it's very marginal in absolute terms) coupled with a violent refusal to help out the less fortunate, successful and pulled-together among us.

Most of the current news media came of age in Reagan's time, and no matter what they think their personal politics are, they demonstrate the same judgemental selfishness that Rand glorified and Reagan popularized in the way they cover and don't cover our current economic calamity.  Before he dies, Tom Brokaw should write a tome on his successors in the media and title it "The Most Selfish Generation."