He hasn't a clue of what he's talking about. Considered liberal by whom?

The WSJ is an excellent place to get day to day views of the Wall Street Capitalists.

I'm disappointed in the tack of journalism today. We rarely see true investigative journalism.

About the only sources I look to are realclearpolitics.com, bbc.com, wall street journal, the telegraph, occasionally cnn or fox, but it's mostly poorly crafted garbage.

Is the Christian Science Monitor still worth reading? I read that in college.

I also like Le Figaro, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde, plus a few of the Spanish publications.

There's an Australian publication I don't mind, theAustralian.

Here's an article on the study, apparently conducted by UCLA.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla...UCLA-6664.aspx

But UCLA is so conservative, it taints this entire study.

There are several factors working against investigative journalism: the expense on the production side, the perceived lack of a profitable audience (or readership), audience's not realizing how much better they could have it, the pervasiveness of "gotcha" journalism and celebrity fluff, a lack of the necessary expertise amongst journalists generally (although this is a particular problem with new media, where you sometimes have very young and inexperienced people who have spunk and ambition, but very little sense of informing a citizenry, let alone the ability to do such).

A corporate-partisan press doesn't have to be a problem. It has some distinct advantages, actually. One study I read found a statistically significant correlation between a partisan press and public involvement in civic issues. We actually have a rich heritage of the partisan press, going back to Sam Adams and the other colonial papers.

A stronger non-corporate voice is needed too. Big corporate operations have the resources to get significant global stories, but something needs to be worked out so that "citizen" isn't constantly subjugated to "consumer." They need some public accountability, and the FCC isn't doing it.

Non-corporate investigative journalism might have a shot in the form of local media. Making low power FM radio affordable would be a start. You could make a radio transmitter that would broadcast for a few miles with a couple of hundred dollars and a trip to Radio Shack, but the paperwork costs thousands. Our sense of citizenship and community could be strengthened by this kind of thing (and has been in the past) and some legit, local investigative journalism could happen. I've gotten the OK from my dean to do this this fall. My students are going to craft stories based on riding along with local police, doing cop watches, poking around city hall, and what not. We are putting their video footage up on the web.

Professional journalists would need bigger budgets to do more investigative journalism, but their business-minded editors and owners don't want to take the risks. Journalists who go to press events that they find out about via e-mail or fax machine require fewer resources. They are often cozier with institutional sources and can get cooperation more easily (even if it is meaningless, it fills air time and column inches) Owners love the 24 hour commentary stuff because it's so cheap. Why do an investigative story when you can just pay to have a poll done?

The printing of word-for-word, or almost word-for-word press releases and the use of VNR (PR video) footage has to stop, yesterday. It won't, though.

The Christian Science Monitor has higher standards than most. It's former Editor in Chief is a BYU prof (and an associate of mine). I look at the Australian now and again.

Bias isn't the issue. It's a red herring. Oh yes, and this guy hasn't a clue of what media research does and doesn't say. He clearly isn't even aware of McCombs & Shaw, who did the definitive work on Agenda Setting, or of the many articles that have compared speeches to media content. That research goes back to WWI.

Did he account for prominence? Photography? Context of the item? There's no indication that he did. It seems like he just did a tally. I'd want to see his coding sheets, for starters. He may have an interesting idea with the ADA scores, but he doesn't evidence an understanding of the media, which might have something to do with the fact that his article is in an economics journal.