Item: CBS perpetrated lousy journalism when it wasn’t skeptical of memos concerning President’s Bush Texas Air National Guard record.
This, after cowering before the White House on Iraq policy for more than two years.
Item: This CBS error is "the worst press scandal "of our era," according to syndicated columnist John Leo (Albuquerque Journal, today).
Not the press’s failure to question the war on Iraq? Not its buy-in to the WMD story? Nor its failure to debunk the fiction of a "war on terror"? Not Fox News, the fiar and balanced network?
Item: CBS has removed from the schedule a 60 Minutes report on the rationale for the war in Iraq because it would be "inappropriate" to air it so close to the presidential election, the network said on Saturday.
Inappropriate? Huh?
In China, TV news is operated and/or supervised by the government, so there is no dissent from Beijing’s fundamental policies.
In the US, some journalistic freedom remains. Given corporate cowardice, though, and the powerful rightwing drumbeat against "the liberal media," that freedom is shrinking.