Billmon
[A]ll that only goes to show how thoroughly the official propaganda continues to shape the coverage — even when the journalists involved understand that the propaganda is misleading or flat wrong.
Breaking the cycle would require the herd to challenge the spin and disinformation they’re being fed, instead of letting it become the baseline that has to be timidly corrected later as the facts come to light. The burden of proof, in other words, would have to be put on the spinners, instead of reality. And it would have to be put there by the journalistic herd as a whole — or at least, by the dominant group within the herd — and not just by a few mavericks and dissidents.
But of course we no longer have that kind of journalism in this country [..]