All The News That's Unfit To Print

It's no big secret that Fox News has willingly assumed the role of the Republican Party's mouthpiece through its faithful parroting of misleading administration talking points and rapturous embrace of the president's policies (a past segment on Neil Cavuto's program prominently featured the question, "The #1 President on Mideast Matters: George W. Bush?"), a status that was solidified with the White House's acquisition of former anchor Tony Snow as its press secretary. Yet even discounting Fox News' almost comically biased and inaccurate portrayal of the news, the performance of the Fourth Estate has severely deteriorated in both quality and content over the past few years.

Financial concerns such as shrinking profit margins, growing consolidation in the industry and increasing competition from Internet sources have led news outlets to slash spending on journalism, particularly the type of investigative reporting that heretofore defined the press' role as gatekeepers for politicians and corporations, and focus instead on entertainment, lifestyle and murder/kidnapping stories in an effort to attract younger, politically apathetic consumers. Consider, for instance, the news overload that surrounded the JonBenet Ramsey story this past August. During a period that witnessed the downfall of a once prominent Senate Democrat, a ruling on Bush's warrantless NSA wiretapping program by a Detroit federal judge that deemed it illegal and unconstitutional and mass carnage in the ongoing Middle Eastern conflicts, the story that consistently dominated the headlines concerned a 10-year-old murder case.