WisPolitics Budget Blog

It cost Dan Rather his anchorship. CBS execs then fired a few producers. No doubt a few B-level researchers left the network to pursue their dreams of publishing novels.

So when will the keyboards drop at Newsweek? Already, the editor, Mark Whittaker, has taken to cable TV to defend/explain/spin his magazine’s irresponsible and inaccurate reporting of Muslim prisoner abuse by American soldiers.

Hey, Newsweek, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, third-rate magazine editor?

You have the luxury of not knowing what the Pentagon knows. That prisoner interrogation, while tragic, probably saves lives. And that President Bush’s existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't report the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want Bush on that wall, you need Bush on that wall.

Network news, and now, weekly magazine reporters, are losing their audiences to cable, talk radio, and internet sites. Mainstream media is sinking like dinosaurs in a tar pit.

Perhaps the big wheels at Viacom, Disney and others should redistribute a percentage of their profits from those clichéd reality shows to their news divisions. Then, CBS and Newsweek could hire more researchers and reintroduce accuracy into their reporting.