David Broder WP Writers Group WASHINGTON - .... The American news media have been clobbered. ...the news organizations on which people should be able to depend have been diverted into chasing sham-events... ...editors of ..., The New York Times and USA Today, were forced to resign because their organizations were duped by lying staff reporters, ... ...none of these damaging failures would have occurred had senior journalists not been blind to the fact that the standards in their organizations were being fatally compromised.... The first symptom ... began offering their most prestigious and visible jobs not to people deeply imbued...