Good night and good luck

I watched "Good night and good luck" last week and like many I was just enthralled to realize the parallels you could draw between the media then - too cowed and timid to speak out against McCarthism - and the media now - too sold out and dummed down to speak out against Bushism.

If you felt the same, whether you saw the movie or not, you might enjoy reading The Failures of Post-9/11 Media an interview with Kristina Borjesson the author of a new book called "Feet to the Fire". Her comments are at once inciteful, enlightening and occasionally hopeful. That there are still a few principled reporters out there on a quest for truth is good to know, that someone like Borjesson is working to promote their work is even better. Now if we could only actually see some of these people in the "mainstream" media, but unfortunately by very definition until the mainstream picks itself up by its collective shoestrings and hauls itself out of the quagmire of mediocrity, propoganda and just plain bold-faced lies. Just don't hold your breath waiting for that day...

In the mean time I enocurage you to go seek the good stuff direct from the source wherever you can find it. One such source which actually miracuously makes it into the NYT, is Paul Krugman. I have to say I hadn't heard of him until reading the Alternet article - but now I have. Unfortunately you'll need an NYT subscription to read his columns that dish the dirt on Bush's economic war on sanity, you can however buy his book "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century" recently updated in paperback. Also recommended is Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog on the Middle-East, history and religion.