B-plus Journalism Returns

Rather than using this space to say nasty things about the corporate media like I usually do, I have to admit that at least one network evening news broadcast -- the one I watch -- is getting better.

After NBC's shameful cheerleading during the runup to the Iraq War (and yes, I know, they were all doing it at the time), "Nightly News" had to improve. It couldn't have gotten any worse, and had no place to go but up.

Maybe the show's producers don't want to end up sitting where Judith Miller, former warmonger-in-chief for the New York Times, has been for the last couple of days. They have to have learned something in the last four years.

Last night's broadcast was especially good, featuring not necessarily in this order:

*A debunking of the administration's claims concerning Iranian involvement on the side of "the terrorists" (which ones?) operating in the Iraq War. This was the "in-depth" segment, hosted by Andrea Mitchell (a.k.a. Mrs. Greenspan) no less. Mitchell stopped just short of calling the administration's claims a lie.

*The continuing expose of "tens of millions" of dollars wasted in Iraq reconstruction projects carried out by American contractors who were awarded sweetheart contracts, singling out Parsons Corp. as one of the worst offenders.

*The lede story was Joe Biden's dumb comments about Barack Obama which, while complimentary, simultaneously insulted every other black candidate who has ever sought the presidency (see below).

*A segment on the role of pharmaceuticals commercials in the creation of new and previously unremarked illnesses, focusing on the newest among them, "restless leg syndrome." Turns out that's a real condition, but never identified as something that needed treatment until pharma companies discovered that a medication already being marketed for Parkinson's Disease could alleviate the symptoms.

Altogether it was a commendable half-hour wrap-up of the day's events and trends, especially the segment on the administration's anti-Iran propaganda. I hope this is a trend, and that after the amount of egg the corporate media still has on its face due to the Iraq disaster, that newsmen and women have broken that nefarious habit of receiving government handouts, re-typing and slightly re-wording them, and then reading them over the air. Real journalism requires that the content of those handouts be subjected to at least a minimal scrutiny and skepticism.