B. U. G. S.

I said below that in today’s media, news and editorial opinion is ground out by an assembly line.

It is publish or perish. So you have to manufacture information that gets published.

It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference whether you are producing articles for Penthouse or the New York Times or the BBC or Hunter’s Magazine.

The Professional Journalist thinks he is a special case because he produces his product for a specific group of people who are called Professional Journalists or Flagship Media. The assumption is that his particular product is judged by people who are Practically Perfect in Every Way like Mary Poppins.

As I pointed out in my last book, our theory of government is based on the idea that anybody who has money and power needs to watched and regulated.

With one exception.

That exception is the Third Estate.

We all accept the idea that the media has a DUTY to ask questions of anyone who has power and money that affect the rest of us that they would ask of the average person.

But no one has any right to pry into whatever Dan Rather chooses to call his “private opinions.”

Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite had a hell of a lot of money and a hell of a lot more power. The media in general have huge power and money, both of which dwarf other big businesses.

But that influence has NEVER been a SERIOUSLY scandal.

True, there have been one or two reporters who got into embarrassing position, like the Professional Journalist who got the Pulitzer Prize for a story she completely made up. But it was an embarrassment, not a scandal.

Every single respectable cosnervative agreed that it was entirely HER fault. She fooled her honest and dedicated superiors.

It was a mistake, not a SCANDAL.

A black man got caught after years of making up stories for the New York Times. But what made it OK was that many Professional Jounralists INSIDE the New York Times had been sending memos for YEARS about how this guy was lying.

I have frankly forgotten the embarrassment that Dan Rather got caught in. He misinterpreted some information about the Bush Administration that caused some rioting.

The press went after the few rotten eggs who caused this. They embarrassed Professional Journalists.

My own guess is that every one of those who caused this is still a Professional Journalist drawing a big time salary.

Congressmen go to prison for little slips like that. Presidents get impeached for embarrassments like that.

The prisons contain thousands of small businessmen who got embarrassed like that.

You see, when a president or a congressman or a businessman does something that is blamed on “a few rotten apples” among Professional Journalitsts, the first thing Professional Journalists ask is, “Is this the tip of the iceberg?”

In other words, is this just one incident that leaked?

When a congressman does something wrong the mdeia ask, “is this just one thing that came to light? After all, a congressman or the president have a lot of power. They are able to hide most of their misdeeds.”

All of which is perfectly true.

But anything that happens in the press is an “embarrassment.” There is no iceberg.

And nobody has more power to hide most of their misdeeds than the press does.

Has anybody heard any talk of an iceberg in the media?