The "9-11 Omission" has raised what I think is the greatest threat of our times -- the complete corruption of the Imperial News Media. Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the job the news media is currently doing. I've been reading how the lamestream press has been biased for years. They probably have always been biased, but at least until this year, they tried to put up a facade of objectivity. Now, from Tim Russert to Katie Couric, from Chris Matthews to David Gregory, from Howard Fineman to "Hair-Blown Boy" with CBS (can't remember his name), the news media has dropped all pretense of being "objective."
Maybe this is viewed by some as a positive -- for once in their existence, they're actually being truthful in their craven bias -- but the frustrating thing is that we can do nothing about it. They parade the 9-11 Professional Victim Wives out every time they want to discuss 9-11; the purpose of this isn't to imform, but to shill. All the while, the other 99.9% of the 9-11 families are ignored. They pack their panels such that conservatives are outnumbered about 4-to-1, guaranteeing that "in fairness," the conservative only gets 25% of the airtime, if that.
I'm more than sick of it; I'm furious. But what can I do? The news media is beyond accountability. They can spin, lie, and twist to their hearts' connect, and other than to scream from the sidelines, there's nothing anyone can do about it. Because they are the "media," they can effectively screen out any dissent about what they do, and how they do it. There is no effective defense or weapon against the Imperial News Media, and they know it.
Somewhere along the way — and I don't know the precise history of this — the First Amendment clause guaranteeing a free press was twisted to virtually eliminate effective libel and slander laws, thereby making it all-but-impossible to successfully sue or criminally prosecute reporters, newspapers, and other news companies. Not 100% impossible, but nearly so.
To the extent the general public has any knowledge of this problem at all, they probably think this only impacts "public" people. But few are aware of just how easy it is to become a public person in the eyes of our pathetic libel/slander laws. If you're on TV even once, or in the newspapers once, you can be considered a public person.
I understand the need to protect our press freedoms, but the system is skewed waaaay too far over in favor of the media. The effect is that they are the only truly unaccountable business under our system of criminal and civil law. Unlike other companies, if their product is harmful, or fraudulent, or defective, they can't be held accountable. They can ride roughshod over the lives of any one of us, and lie, cheat, steal, trespass, and even commit treason and sedition in the process. Yet they are untouchable.
It's one of the great injustices in our nation, in my opinion. Not even Great Britain, grandmother of our founding principles, has so little check on media power.