[jalisco555]

To me, though, it smacks of something bordering on journalistic fascism, in which all elected politicians are contemptible, all judges are disreputable and only journalists are capable of telling the truth, even though what passes for truth is sometimes little more than prejudice unsupported by facts.

This could be said about much of US journalism as well.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

I have largely quit reading newspapers to obtain factual information. The impression that I have regretfully come to is that the writers, although possesing college degrees, are both uneducated and uninformed.

Think back to the press briefings during the First Gulf War, was there ever such a group of uninformed persons attempting to cover the action. They put their ignorance on public display for all to see.

The factual content of articles in today's newspapers leaves much to be desired. Read an article, and then attempt to answer some questions about what happened based on the info in the article (filtering out the spin). Good luck!

[Cicero]

Excellent editorial. It's ironic that it should appear in The Guardian, one of the worst offenders, but we should welcome the truth from any source.

[Prodigal Son]

From the start, though, too many newspapers invested too heavily in a particular preferred outcome on these key points. They wanted the government found guilty on the dossier and on the naming, and they wanted Gilligan's reporting vindicated.

There it is. Summed up in two sentences.

The news media want reality to conform to their ideology.

[an amused spectator]

"To me, though, it smacks of something bordering on journalistic fascism, in which all elected politicians are contemptible, all judges are disreputable and only journalists are capable of telling the truth, even though what passes for truth is sometimes little more than prejudice unsupported by facts." - Martin Kettle (The Guardian, February 3, 2004)

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Don't know if you've got this one already, Timesink, but the quote is a classic. :-)