What's The Frequency, Kenneth Herr Goebbels?

OK, I know I said I wouldn't be blogging, but this was just to ripe a fruit not to pluck.

From the Aspen Daily News: Dan Rather wants Obama to help save the news.

From itself?

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.

“I personally encourage the president to establish a White House commission on public media,” the legendary newsman said.

We could call it something like, "The Ministry of Information"! Yeah!

Such a commission on media reform, Rather said, ought to make
recommendations on saving journalism jobs and creating new business models to
keep news organizations alive.

Here's an idea for a way to save journalism jobs: BE JOURNALISTS, NOT PROPAGANDISTS!

Corporate and political influence on newsrooms, along with the conflation of news and entertainment, has created what Rather called “the dumbing down and sleazing up of what we see on the news.”

Do you think that maybe some of that "sleazing up" can be attributed to the media's whoring itself out to one political ideology, Mr. "Fake but accurate"?

The free press, as established by the First Amendment to the Constitution, ought to operate as a public trust, not solely as a money-making endeavor, Rather argued, and it’s time the government make an effort to ensure the survival of the free press. If not the government, he suggested, then an organization like the Carnegie Foundation should take it on. Without action, he predicted, America will lose its independent media.

So let me get this straight -- the way to ensure a free press is to have the government control it? how very Soviet in your logic, Dan.

“If we do nothing more than stand back and hope that innovation alone will solve this crisis,” he said, “then our best-trained journalists will lose their
jobs.”

So that's what it really comes down to. Dan's worried about his buddies' paychecks. When he says "Best-trained", just filter it as "Most thoroughly indoctrinated" and you'll see what the real crisis for Dan and his ilk are. Because the fact is, Mr. BLather, innovation alone IS solving the crisis. From alternative news outlets, to the blogs, to the way that social networking sites like Twitter were used to get the news out of Iran when the government there had shut down traditional journalists, innovation is driving changes in how information gets out. The old legacy media no longer holds the information monopoly. And THAT is what Dan Rather REALLY wants Obama to save.