[DM]

Perhaps that's why it's hard, sometimes, to be a columnist here. If I call up the FDA, ask them why they're considering regulating the Net, then blast them in a column -- well, they're not going to return my phone calls next time. The TIME affiliation helps, but bureaucrats aren't entirely stupid -- they're not going to offer information and interviews to their critics. Perhaps there's something to be said for the Washington Post "he said, she said" style of reporting.

there is nothing to be said for it except that it is one step up from what is contributing to the inbred relationship between journalists and politicians. once upon a time, a journalist did not try to curry favor with politicians, it was not a non-antagonistic relationship nor was it meant to be. today, journalists go to their feeding buffets called "press conferences" and pass on uncritically what is fed to them. whatever happened to the journalist who tried to dig for a real story? obviously the truth does not come easily, and older style journalists were closer to understanding this. why is our press so screwed up? because it has been infiltrated at the very highest echelons by the CIA with its own agenda, which itself is being driven by another more sinister agenda behind the scenes. the press has reached the level of hypnotic proportions in its ability to manipulate the perceptions of the populace. if the media is the eyes of the populace, then it has been increasingly blinded for several years. I encourage anyone to read anything by Ambrose Evans Pritchard, a british journalist, to see the level of unwary mindless corruption we are now wallowing in daily in this country, in both the media and government. the crack cocaine situation in LA is a good example of how the truth is buried by the media. a maverick newspaper reports something close to the truth and the cia-manipulated mouthpieces around the country pile on the journalist and the newspaper in a barrage of picks that choke the truth in clouds of smoke. the internet is breaking some of the press's stranglehold on communication between citizens. I expect that the mainstream media is going to crumble very soon as the public begins to realize how corrupted it has become, both advertently and inadvertently. in my opinion, the press has become as corrupt as the government. a pity, because as Jefferson hoped, the press would become a control on the government. the founding fathers seemed to have a lot of faith in the integrity of humanity that does not seem to have entirely been borne out by history.