One of the saddest things about the crumbling of our larger journalistic institutions is that, when they fall, the majority of the American public will no longer be exposed to the basic set of facts on which conservative or liberal opinions should be based.
Indeed, it seems that there’s been an attack on the concept that there exists a common set of facts on which we can all agree.
Sorry for the short post. I could write much more on this whole topic but wanted to note this one meme that’s popping out at me, as I read about the New York Times’ hiding it’s opinion columnists behind a wall of money, or Daniel Okrent’s smokescreen on why he did his job as omsbudman for the NYT so poorly, or, of course, of course, the stupid acceptance of responsibility of Newsweek for violence that preceded their publishing of two-year-old information — while the White House calls for their heads.
I know. I usually post this stuff over at the political blog but this was less an analysis of the news, than a simple sinking feeling about the loss of a democratic republic over 200 years young.