The Quiz Show Scandal of the 1950s is regarded as yet another of America’s strangely frequent, evidently arbitrary “end of innocence” moments, supposedly leaving a devastated American psyche in its greedy wake. A latter-day PBS documentary and Robert Redford’s film “Quiz Show” maintain this thesis, as if the American public, lumpen and dumbfounded on their overstuffed living room sets, were mesmerized by the magic of coast-to-coast shell games. Honestly, according to this narrative, it would be impossible not to overestimate the impact of the rigging scandal, since its revelation sparked Congressional hearings, and even President Eisenhower decried its baleful issue. (Never doubt politicians’ willingness to posture politically, no matter the topic.)

But nothing could be farther from the truth. In that primeval stage of the video era, Americans noted the crash-and-burn in the same way they would witness any other public self-immolation – with transient fascination and benign detachment. They knew the truth of which press agents dare not speak: Quiz shows were as unimportant and disposable as any other cheap diversion. What mattered to the “just folks” then as now was family, friends, job, paycheck. Throwaway entertainment matters only to the throwaway media that relentlessly distributes it; for the rest of humanity, it’s just a jingle to download on a cell phone.

But you’re not going to hear that from any given news pundit or newspaper column, much less from this nation’s jarring, relentless movie and TV industries. In that world, the media has untold power to take the American communal worldview and mold it like soaked clay, stretching and mutating our perception of  reality surrounding us until it becomes unrecognizable, frightening. Bubbling down real life to a literary conceit – an “end of innocence” or a “new beginning” – puts a catchy tune to the dark but imminently ephemeral lyrics.

So… recent events must have snapped back on our psychic sculptors, and given them a bit o' pause, since Americans aren’t biting at the carrot as intended. Almost 65 percent of Americans disbelieve the FBI’s narrative that a lone, conveniently dead researcher was responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks. And we’re just plain-old unwilling to jump into another Cold War over a Caucasian state few of us recognize.

This is good news – if you’ll pardon the term - since in the past decade contemporary mass media has transformed itself into a virtual crop circle, with all the credible integrity of a Charles Ponzi or Ken Lay. They helped lead us – leashed and eager – to the abyss of Iraq. They chant in accordant unison whenever the Administration hints at impending war with Iran. On any issue – from immigration reform to re-regulating our financial institutions – they await word from the halls of power before taking a stand. And, once taken, unyieldingly barrage us with twisted message and ass-backward reasoning to make up down, black white and night turn bright noontide.

As Antiwar.com columnist Justin Raimondo notes today about the newest Asian conflict: “The news media – and, not coincidentally, the War Party – isn't interested in reporting the facts. All they care about is the 'narrative' – one not necessarily based on reality, designed to convince the public that what our rulers are doing and planning is right and just. The (William) Kristolian narrative of poor, little, pro-Western Georgia is a tall tale. Georgian "free market democracy" exists in the same alternate universe as Iraq's famed 'weapons of mass destruction' and the Piltdown Man, but you won't see many other media outlets saying that.“

Most news stories, in the opening days of the battle over South Ossetia last week, topped stories with breathless accounts of “Russian aggression” and “attacks” that had left scores of civilians dead. Usually buried in accounts was the fact that Georgia had attacked first, trying to gobble up the breakaway province, as well as another disputed region, Abkhazia. Some in the news business have even admitted that Georgia is a bastion of democracy much in the same way John Edwards is a paragon of faithful abstinence.

But it was the media’s dance around the bonfire of Dr. Bruce Ivins’ reputation that may have opened the eyes of America’s distracted media consumers once and for all. After promised FBI evidence indicated the feds had little to connect the late researcher with the sinister anthrax letter attacks of 2001, even the most dedicated News Corp. customer must have realized that the only real proof against Ivins was his suicide itself – regardless of its finality, not a smoking gun. The media is really left holding the bag here, looking very foolish, and maybe deceitful, for helping “convict” Ivins with little more than innuendo.

You’d think a lesson would’ve been learned by now. At some point, the media's shrinking credibility will hit them in the pocket book. The clearest indication of trouble is that one of the Fire Magic Media's chief shamen, Bill O'Reilly, has seen his ratings steadily erode since 2006. That's ratings, Mr. Murdoch. Ratings, like time, is money.

But this opens a larger question: Regardless of its inescapable cacophony, how much of the brusque, intrusive ganglia of the information industry truly infiltrates our lives? And does it have that much of an impact?

It’s always funny to see the media angrily react to evidence of its own irrelevance. Nothing sums this up better than the behavior of bottom-feeders – like celebrity paparazzi. Their surly contempt for the very stars they “cover” turns quickly to antagonism and even outright abuse when the rich and famous don’t play their game, don’t pause a moment to preen for the flashbulbs.

This dispassion oddly is both antidote and fuel for our cultural imperialism, the global juggernaut that so entices and rots. If Coca-Cola, logo-printed T-shirts and Tom Cruise disappeared in the next minute, they would not long be missed – if at all. American popular culture is so fun, so vibrant, so… immediate expressly because its underlying insignificance is almost universally recognized, dispatching any “tension” of importance. 

Average Joes are not superficial because they consider their own, active pastimes crucial - and constantly presented, unsolicited “sideshows” unimportant. They are stronger because of that intuition, however unacknowledged it may remain.