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You're right about the party thing, but America now only has one party, the Corporate Party. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians... none of it matters because now that the Fairness Doctrine has been eradicated, it's all about who has the most media influence.

It's even more telling when you look into the White House's web site and their robots.txt Search Exclusions which basically deny Google and other indices the permission to archive content, and specifically if it relates to Iraq.

After watching the great documentary The Corporation, all of this makes sense, since the government basically has given corporations all the rights of humans, but none of the responsibility or accountability. So Microsoft can blatantly spit in the face of court subpoenas and suffer virtually no consequences. Sad, but welcome to the 21st corporate-centric century.

A lot of this ironically, has to do with one organization with an exaggerated membership, that peddles smut on their own web site that systemmatically harasses the FCC over these issues. The goofy, right wing, Parents Television Council, whose leadership seem to primarily sit around all day and watch/document every sleazy media moment they can get their sweaty eyeballs on.

I agree that the blogging community does seen focused on random factoids, but this is an element of the new media, which uses technology to assemble and organize all these random bits. Maybe with analog library technology, it was imperative to be much more focused, but computers make it easy to compile small chunks of information from disparate sources efficiently. We see systems like Wikipedia which are designed to turn this otherwise noise-filled data into even more comprehensive and well-rounded references.

Beyond this, bloggers and independent online entities are fast becoming the new media, challenging the traditional institutions that have controlled the nature of how and what information people can access. These new systems have new ways of doing things. The fact that an obsolete librarian doesn't appreciate this is validation of the new movement's usefulness and innovative approach. Some sites are even keeping track of the inroads bloggers are making in changing the way information is distributed. Welcome to the new world, new media.

Score another major issue that was instigated by the New Media (bloggers).

Score another major issue that was instigated by the New Media (bloggers).

Napster isn't being completely honest about their so-called all you can eat music policy.

When we got rid of the The Fairness Doctrine in 1987, we sent a clear message to the world that the United States was not interested in free speech for everyone.

In a related story, that guy that's all over television and radio commercials hawking the Cortislim crap, "Dr. Greg Cynaumon" has equally dubious educational credentials. Seems his claim to being a "doctor" and much of his claims are being challenged.

What amazes me is this guy is on television every day, and the media has never thought to investigate him? I guess they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them. But you have to wonder about a commercial promoting a weight loss product that urges you to not weigh yourself.

• Viewmaster
  
• Rockem Sockem Robots
  
• Barrel of Monkeys
  
• Hot Wheels
  
• Etch-A-Sketch
  

As goofy as the story might be, that it's "worthy of reporting" that abortions cause cancer, even though an overwhelming number of scientists claim otherwise, one device was available up until 1987 to address situations like this.

The Fairness Doctrine would have allowed those who disagree with the story airtime to present their own point of view. Unfortunately Reagan and the Republicans killed the Fairness Doctrine many years ago.

If you're old enough, you probably remember a time when network news had a carefully-delineated editorial section of their broadcast. It was usually at the end of the show and someone would come on and say their editorial and the station would air a message like, "If you disagree you're invited to come on the air with your own opinion." The existence of guidelines allowing opposition groups to counter news reports forced the mainstream media to be more objective in their reporting. All that went out the window when the Fairness Doctrine was erased.

I object less to goofy stories, than I do the fact that if you disagree, you don't have any substantive recourse to express your point of view to the same audience. There is no "discussion" on these issues any more. It's really a shame this very useful set of FCC rules were gutted.

There is no legitimate reason to not have the Fairness Doctrine in effect unless you don't respect the value of hearing two sides to a story. Those who say the law would be counterproductive are exclusively the ones who are happy with the fact that their agenda is being pushed and don't want the people to hear any contrary opinions.

Let's lobby to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and give groups equal time to counter the biased media.

The policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission that became known as the "Fairness Doctrine" is an attempt to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be

balanced and fair. The FCC took the view, in 1949, that station licensees were "public trustees," and as such had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance. The Commission later held that stations were also obligated to actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues. With the deregulation sweep of the Reagan Administration during the 1980s, the Republican-controlled Commission dissolved the fairness doctrine.

The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine harkened a new age in media and journalism. News outlets were no longer forced to adopt middle ground positions when covering issues; editorial no longer need be confined to narrow areas, and the airwaves exploded with thousands of heavily polarized pundits broadcasting 24 hours a day their agendas, without any concern for fairness or covering alternative viewpoints.

Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and thousands of other partisian pundits were free to spew their slanted take on the world without ever considering the need to offer anything but a wholly one-sided tale of the issues. Left un-regulated and therefore un-challeneged, their hubris expanded to epic preportions as evidenced in statements like, "Fair and Balanced, "No Spin Zone", etc.

And thus began the modern propaganda wars. Unfortunately it's more of a massacre than a real war.

Yes, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine also gave liberal entities the same freedom. The problem is the platforms for these pundits were mostly commercial radio stations, and the conservatives took the role of spokespeople for the agenda of corporate America, unarguably the true political power in the nation. Liberals, representing the moderate voice of the mainstream didn't have the resources that mouthpieces for big-pharma, insurance, finance, oil and defense contractors, and as a result, found themselves literally drowning in a sea of pro-big-business propaganda, with no way to get equal airtime and thus, no comparable method

Apples and oranges.

Back then the terms "conservative" and "liberal" had completely different meanings. In fact, in England there's a huge difference in those terms when compared with the American definitions. And on top of that, nobody really seems to know what a liberal is except those who seem to be proud they're not a liberal. The whole notion is bullshit.

Here's a good list of media endorsements for the various candidates.

My girlfriend had a Kerry sign in her front yard. It kept disappearing and she kept putting it up. One evening when she was driving home she saw a van plastered with pro-life bumper stickers driving around the neighborhood. The van would stop in front of some house with a democratic yard sign, out would pop a little girl from the passenger seat, she'd pull the sign up and toss it in the back of the van. My girlfriend watched in horror as the driver of this van, presumably the child's mother, had her kid go through the neighborhood picking up these signs. She started to follow them and they got wise they were being followed and sped off. My GF went to the police to report it and they said it wasn't worth reporting because probably no action would be taken even though she got the license number of the van.

It's pretty despicable when people engage their kids in such activities. Unfortunately, you see a lot of this activity among the rabid pro-life crowd: they bring their kids out front of abortion clinics holding up signs with pictures of dead fetuses. There seems to a recurring theme of partisians using children as political tools.

I think this would be interesting, but how do you actually rebut a hundred different blogs?

Here's an example of a political blog that makes a lot of noise about political issues. Are these war rooms going to do a bunch of astroturfing, replying to peoples blogs, or are they going to serve as some central reference post that others can refer to?

I recommend BSAlert.com - it covers politics and a lot of corporate society issues that seem to have gone horribly wrong.