How censored do you feel the news media is these days?

I don't think the media has always been like this but it's been getting worse and worse in the past ten years and it happened so slowly that many people didn't even notice. You're exactly right about the special interest groups and that's why I'm glad to see several far left newspapers failing.

I come from a country where the news medium is instructed by the government to be "responsible" in its reporting of news. On the surface this seems like a very reasonable thing to insist on from the media. Media, should after all be a tool that tells both sides of the story, leaving the individual reader to decide which side they're on.

Unfortunately, when governments ask the media to be responsible, they never specify to whom the media is supposed to be responsible too. In Singapore that usually means that the media is responsible to the government and usually toes the government line on most day-to-day issues. You can criticize the government but you have to do it through a load of double speak. However, most journalist in our system tend to be responsible and take the government line - there is no official censorship - there's no need for it, journalist are trained to censor themselves. As a whole, the government in Singapore is good but I think an unthinking press that fails to question policies is not good - it assumes we live in a hunky dorey world.

Then again, allot of Americans would tell me that it's not that different in America. I mean, how many newspapers gave Ron Paul the time of the day or an ounce of ink. Instead, the news agenda has gone onto to promote, what the Economist (a publication I respect) calls, "The Old Warrior versus the Young Visionary." Ron Paul didn't make this agenda but did raise some issues which the main guys conveniently ignored.

Another form of censorship, which seems to be, unfortunately, becoming more universal is the "responsibility for the bottom line." These days, it seems that editorial is a marketing tool to attract advertisers into the game. Write an unfriendly article and an advertiser might pull out - which means that the journalist loses his job.

Censorship comes in many forms. I don't think any news medium can be wholly without bias, whether its by the editor, publisher or proprietor ala Rupert Murdoch. I think its just a question of degree. I guess the only way to find the truth is to read as many news sources as one is able to.

Right, somewhere along the line they became more interested in making money than reporting the news. I don't watch the big three network newscasts anymore and, while I used to love reading the Washington Post and did so for over 20 years, I let my subscription run out and stopped going to their website.

I watch the Fox News Channel, too, when I want to get the real news but I have to confess that I sometimes watch Lou Dobbs on CNN just for laughs. He is usually*reporting* on something the Bush administration or the government is doing/has done and he is ALWAYS shocked. His outrage is just too funny not to watch but I also realize that there are many viewers who watch his and other programs on CNN who don't realize that they're only getting half of the story.

You have a nice weekend, too. It's sad that fabricating and exaggerating news stories should be their jobs, though.