My good chum Cindy has recently blogged about how the death spiral of the news industry is impacting upon her. I do not mean this post to demean her or anybody else personally affected, especially not the foot soldiers in the legions of doom.

 But ya gotta wonder whether mainstream media is so far gone that its too late.

My anecdotal assessment is more television than newspaper oriented, but, alas, so is the American experience.

 Bad enough that Michael Jackson crowded real news (Uighers, anybody?) out of the headlines. That coverage has been no worse than Princess Di, so can not be evidence of decline. The groundlings have long loved bread and circuses, and the elites will cater to it (oh- don't get me started on "reality" tv!) Whoops...I already sort of kind of did.

 Worse of course that the MSM distort their 'reporting' on torture and detention, but Glenn Greenwald and others have covered that ground better than I could

Today's evidence of the trivialization of news by the news providers themselves is provided by the Jakarta bombings. Robin Menikoff had it on OS at 10:07 Thursday night.  This post was in turn quoting news outlets.

All of which should be contrary to my thesis. 

Until I woke up and watched the opening of the Today Show Friday morning. Banner rolling along the bottom of the screen : "Breaking News: Explosions rocks...".

There was nothing "breaking" about that news which had happened at least 9 hours earlier.

The producer's sense that they had to fulfill the viewers' need or desire for drama is the only reason I can think of for that banner. I don't know whether the producers are correct or not. Maybe it doesn't matter. Even if they are wrong, the deliberate distortion of the reporting, as trivial as it may be, is yet more proof that we all have passed through the looking glass and drank the kool-aid, if we think MSM matters anymore.

Which makes me kind of sad, but glad for Salon and friends.