The 'Media Party' is over

A great article describing the fall of the American Mainstream Media Party by Howard Fineman at of all places ... MSNBC.com Mongo's Emphasis, of course ...

Bush doesn't hate the AMMP (indeed, he likes his share of reporters on a personal basis). He just refuses to care about what it's up to. The terrorist attack of 9/11, and the added security concerns it fueled, have given the White House a new reason to keep the AMMP at bay. Pools are "tighter," more and more events are "closed press," and those that are open are to be viewed at a distance, if at all.

Yes, the Prez doesn't have to play their game anymore. The latest Helen Thomas attack on Scott McClellan the Press Secretary is an amusing anecdote. The president won't call on her at press conferences at all (remember she always used to be first...). Read some of her trash and figure out why.

In this situation, the last thing the AMMP needed was to aim wildly at the president — and not only miss, but be seen as having a political motivation in attacking in the first place. Were Dan Rather and Mary Mapes after the truth or victory when they broadcast their egregiously sloppy story about Bush's National Guard Service? The moment it made air it began to fall apart, and eventually was shredded by factions within the AMMP itself, conservative national outlets and by the new opposition party that is emerging: The Blogger Nation. It's hard to know now who, if anyone, in the "media" has any credibility.

The answer is no one.

And, as Walter Cronkite would say, that's the way it is.

And, you know, when Walter used to say that, that WAS the way it IS. The Socialist Mainstream Media defined the agenda, spoke about the agenda, and told us what to think about the agenda. Their agenda. Anything that didn't fit their view of the world was not negatively reported on ... IT WAS NOT REPORTED AT ALL. Propaganda is controlling the flow of news, and then spinning what you can't control. There were very few things they couldn't control. BTW did anyone notice that 60 Minutes II has been cancelled... Courage, Rather, Courage. What IS that frequency Kenneth?