The only exception was Howard Kurtz, who did his due diligence bringing up the conflicts of interest inherent in the media’s coverage of SOPA and how some networks were better at disclosing such conflicts than others. However, Kurtz only brought this up at the tail end of Reliable Sources for about two minutes, so if you weren’t paying close attention, you might have missed it.

And it’s not just the Sunday shows. On Wednesday, the day of the blackout, none of the primetime shows on MSNBC and Fox News brought up SOPA or the blackout at all except for Rachel Maddow. It’s honestly embarrassing. Yes, it’s awful and/or hilarious how the rest of the Republicans are going after Mitt Romney for being a wealthy venture capitalist. And who knew that Newt Gingrich had marital issues?

But if your argument defending these hosts is “Oh, well they probably had more important issues to cover!” how is it that Lawrence O’Donnell found time to talk about ModernFamilyFuckGate but not the blackout? I completely agree with his position on profanity, but when in the editorial process did they decide “Internet freedom is good, but ABC primetime programming is just a little better”?

RELATED: Jon Stewart On SOPA: ‘A Plan To Prevent Teen Pregnancy That Fills Penises With Cement’

This needs to be part of the conversation. We are talking about the future of the internet. And whether you support SOPA or oppose it, we all use the internet. That’s how you’re able to read this column right now. There has been some coverage of SOPA and the like last week in the lead-up to and in the reaction to Wednesday’s blackout, but it was noticeably marginalized.

It was encouraging to see John King ask the GOP candidates about SOPA during last week’s CNN debate, but with the exception of Ron Paul, I don’t think any of these candidates actually cares about the bill. Gingrich had a good line explaining that as a Republican, it would be foolish of him to look out for the best interests of Hollywood. But only Paul has been bringing up SOPA without being prompted, because he actually forms opinions on things before the media starts to notice them and doesn’t immediately drop an issue just because the media coverage has ended. In fact, Paul gave a shout-out to anti-SOPA activists during his post-primary speech last night, though he accidentally referred to the bill as the “Stop Online Gambling Act.”

To Romney’s credit, he did come out against the bill even though its author, Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, endorsed him back in October. But Paul is the only candidate who understands more people really need to be informed about this issue. And they would be, if not for the fact that the media’s coverage of it has been increasingly lacking.

The day of the blackout, Hollywood Reporter’s Eriq Gardner examined the media coverage of SOPA leading up to Wednesday’s protest. It was relatively satisfying for people concerned about the bill to see anchors like Chris Hayes and Erin Burnett bring the topic up for discussion on their programs, but Gardner took issue with how they personally handled the discussion.

Hayes wanted to know why so many people were protesting the “consequences of legislative change,” struggling to figure out a way to steer the debate where he wanted — or needed — it to go: the potential obligations, for better or worse, of US-based tech companies to do something about foreign-based piracy.

Gardner didn’t have much criticism for Shepard Smith‘s SOPA coverage, but had a few choice words for Erin Burnett, who covered the bill in a segment with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

Burnett talks about discovering a little website called Pirate Bay, and tosses a softball to Wales about whether the site is a problem. Yes, says Wales. She follows it up by asking for an example of how the legislation would restrict free speech. Not a terrible query, but we wonder if Burnett is really listening to any of the answers given. At an earlier point in the interview when Wales is describing DNS-blocking, Burnett is murmuring assent as if she wants to get onto her next question on her checklist, and after getting a cursory response to the free speech question, Burnett is already onto her next topic by invoking Murdoch’s most basic criticism.

In short, Burnett highlights the most heated rhetoric in the debate and in doing so, demonstrates a lack of patience and curiosity about what’s really going on.

On Greta Van Susteren‘s website, the only item that mentions SOPA is a press release from Lamar Smith’s office posted verbatim the day before the blackout. And on the day of the blackout, MPAA head Chris Dodd appeared on Morning Joe to defend the bill. In the video below, Dodd refers to the blackouts by Wikipedia and others as an abuse of power, with not much of what he’s saying being challenged by the hosts.

Bill Maher dismissed worries about internet freedom as a “red herring,” but it’s a very real concern shared by people inside the tech industry and legal experts. Some coverage of this bill has basically been no more than “Well, the bill is called the Stop Online Piracy Act. Why don’t you want to stop online piracy? Huh?” That’s not the point. The difference of opinion is not whether piracy is good or bad, but what is the best method to deal with piracy. But by giving the bill that misleading title, it hoodwinks some of the less aware media personalities into assuming that is what the debate boils down to.

RELATED: Mark Zuckerberg On SOPA: ‘We Can’t Let Poorly Thought Out Laws Get In The Way Of Internet’s Development’

Here’s another example. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who proposed SOPA in the first place, has another bill out there called the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act. If all you knew about the bill was its title, you’d automatically assume that anyone opposing it is okay with internet pornographers. Once again, it misses the point. A provision of the PCIPA that applies to all Americans, not just people accused of child pornography, mandates that all ISPs collect information for all users including “customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses.”

Some blogs and message boards have been trying to bring some attention to the PCIPA and the ACTA treaty being voted on soon by the European Union to create internationally mandated limitations on the internet in other nations, but they’ve gotten almost no traction. Anyone who understands the media knows it has enormous power to shape the agenda. And based on how the media coverage of SOPA is back to almost non-existent, many people might wrongly assume the debate is over and the bill has been shelved for good. SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA have not been “killed,” as some media outlets have phrased it. They have merely retreated for now, ready to strike again long after people have stopped caring. SOPA will be revisited a few weeks or months down the road, but the media can still look into all these different government efforts to regulate the internet and try to at least have an open and honest dialogue with people about it.

(Image via)

RELATED: Fox News Analyst Thrashes Congress On The Payroll Tax Deal With Spot-On NFL Analogy

Candy Crowley observed that in a recent poll, the Tea Party has been losing some traction following the debate over the payroll tax cut extensions. DeMint insisted that particular fight “had nothing to do with the Tea Party,” laying the blame in that particular spat with the media for misrepresenting the arguments.

In fact, DeMint argued that Reid was more to blame than the Tea Party for obstruction in the case of the payroll tax cut extension. He pointed to Reid’s support of a two-month extension that he said would have been payed for with the “permanent increase in the cost of mortgages in America.”

Watch the video below, courtesy of CNN:

“The American public could really care less about being Joe McGinniss’d, not when there are real issues,” Palin exclaimed. “Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife is getting ready to reveal all, again — she has already done that, it seems, like a few times.”

RELATED: Jenny Sanford On Newt Gingrich: ‘Open Marriage’ Calls Into Question His Character

“I call them ‘dumb arses,’” Palin added. “They think by trotting out this old Gingrich divorce interview — that’s old news and it does feature this disgruntled ex- that claimed that it would destroy a campaign. All this does is, Sean, is incentivize conservatives and independents who are so sick of the politics of personal destruction because it’s played so selectively by the media….Their target in this case, Newt is now going to soar even more because we know the game now and we just won’t put up with it. So you know, good call media. Way to go to covertly hype this, even with Gingrich opponents. For being so brilliant, they sure are dumb.”

Palin previously called upon South Carolina voters to support Gingrich on Hannity’s Fox News program on Tuesday, saying “If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I’d vote for Newt and I would want this to continue,”

Listen to Palin slam the media below:

(h/t Daily Caller)

But what about the giant media conglomerates? Well, we know where they stand. OpenCongress lists all the big companies that support the bill, including the following:

• NBC Universal
• Comcast
• News Corporation
• Time Warner
• Disney
• CBS Corporation

Et cetera. The list goes on. But what’s particularly notable about these companies is that they own news organizations. And with SOPA being the big story that it is, one would expect news organizations to start picking up on it. And to a certain extent, you could say they have.

A CNN.com search for SOPA reveals the site has run two stories about the bill, and the bill is mentioned in a third one titled “Doh! The top 10 tech ‘fails’ of 2011.” But in none of these stories is it disclosed that Time Warner, parent company of CNN, supports the legislation. MSNBC.com covered the bill in a November article, which did not disclose its parent companies’ support of the bill. FoxNews.com features more coverage of the bill than its two rivals, and in one article it does mention News Corporation’s support of SOPA.

Now, it’s quite possible the authors of these articles were not aware they had any such disclosure to make. But all the media companies listed above attached their names to a letter sent to members of Congress in September, urging them to pass the SOPA bill into law. And what about the on-air presence on these networks? Surely this important piece of legislation must have warranted at least one story on the nightly news.

Well, apparently not, because according to a study conducted by Media Matters, there has been a virtual media blackout on the airwaves over the past few months in regards to SOPA. The study used LexisNexis figures to calculate just how many times the bill has been reported in the primetime hours on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC. None of these networks gave any nightly news coverage to the bill, with the exception of CNN, where it was brought up briefly during a segment on The Situation Room. Media Matters notes the study does not, however, take into account these networks’ daytime programming, nor is Shepard Smith‘s nightly broadcast factored in.

RELATED: I Can’t Haz SOPA? GoDaddy.com Withdraws Support Of Online Piracy Bill After Threats Of Boycott

A quick perusal of statistics from the website TVeyes also finds that in the past week, the biggest networks to give any mention to SOPA were Bloomberg and CSPAN. In fact, the co-founder of Reddit (a website that has quickly mobilized SOPA opposition) was interviewed on Bloomberg just a few days ago. But still, the major news networks are silent on the issue.

And before you start crying foul that this is a Media Matters study, keep in mind that SOPA not only has bipartisan support, but bipartisan opposition. In fact, RedState’s Erick Erickson proposed a bipartisan coalition to take out any member of Congress who supports the bill. As Erickson succinctly put it:

This battle is so important — and is one of those rare fights where the left and right are united against Congress — that I suggest the left and right unite and pledge to defeat in primaries every person named as a sponsor on H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Normally, this is the kind of legislation that might rile up Rachel Maddow or Bill O’Reilly, so why is there such a deafening silence on this issue that both liberals and conservatives have found common ground in hating?

There are one of two possibilities at play here. Either the network brass is pressuring the news division to not cover the legislation at all (the more conspiratorial point of view), or news anchors are simply avoiding their stories so as not to put their jobs on the line. Some will argue that, perhaps, news anchors are avoiding the story because there is so much more on their platter– why spend an entire segment explaining the serious consequences of a convoluted bill when you have a ten-second soundbite of Rick Santorum maybe saying the work “black“? Whether the possibility exists or not, it does not exonerate reporters from their responsibility to report. And so, of the first two, the latter seems to be the more realistic one. As Eric Boehlert explained to The Register on Media Matters’ findings:

“I don’t think there’s been a top-down edict on this, but the data is interesting… People are smart when it comes to their careers, and may feel that raising the story isn’t a good way to get along with their parent companies.”

Fox News’ lack of coverage is particularly remarkable, because last week Rupert Murdoch personally came to Capitol Hill last week to lobby members of Congress to pass SOPA and its Senate counterpart, PIPA. One might then, logically, expect Fox News to cover SOPA with the best positive spin since, as its critics say, the network gets its marching orders and sticks to it. But what we’re witnessing here is complete silence on the issue. I suspect the networks are smart enough to understand that no matter how much you try to put a smiley face on it, alarm bells go off in people’s heads when they hear the phrase “regulate the internet.”

Luckily for those of us who care about media dissemination of critical information, several big websites are considering a one-day complete blackout to raise awareness about the bill so more people can be informed about it. Now, you might be asking yourself, “Well, what are the chances a few websites are going to make a big impact on public opinion?” Actually, quite large. Here are the companies on board for a possible blackout:

• Google
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Wikipedia
• PayPal
• Zynga (creators of Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc.)
• eBay
• LinkedIn
• IAC, which owns these websites:
  • Dictionary.com
  • Ask.com
  • Dictionary.com
  • Match.com
  • CollegeHumor
  • Dorkly
  • Dictionary.com
  • Vimeo

If all those sites were taken away from people for a 24-hour period, you’d better believe there will be riots in the streets to stop SOPA from passing.

But I’d bet that if the mainstream media had been doing their jobs on this from day one, there would be zero talk of a blackout. Earlier today, I wrote about Rick Santorum‘s comments on the SOPA bill and online piracy. The YouTube video of Santorum was posted two days ago. A Google News search shows Santorum’s remarks were picked up by only two websites: NewsOK.com, which only mentioned SOPA in passing, and Death & Taxes, which uses over half the article to connect the story somehow to Santorum’s Google problem.

RELATED: Rep. Paul Ryan Becomes Latest Target Of Anti-SOPA Activists, Democratic Opponent Gets Fundraising Boost

Media organizations no longer have the luxury of pretending certain stories don’t exist. More and more people get their news via online news sources, and avoiding a story because the people that own you wouldn’t like it gets noticed these days. Absence makes the heart grow more pissed off, basically. These people in the media who gladly embrace controversy on a regular basis (hell, Lawrence O’Donnell hasn’t had a problem with ruffling a few executive feathers before) need to explain why they’re staying so silent on this issue. There’s nothing wrong with having an honest debate on a topic like this.

But then, perhaps you have better things to do, like insulting people you disagree with and laughing at viral videos of confused animals. You know, news.

Look, 2012, I know you think you’re so important because the Mayans said everything ends with you. But short of sharks rising from the seas, the sun mysteriously vanishing, or some other supernatural event taking place, you’re really not going to come close to just how insanely screwed up this year was. You know what the first big story of 2011 was? Thousands of birds dropping dead from for no apparent reason. In more than one place! Chicken Little may have been right after all. Of course, all the dead birds were immediately followed by over two million fish dying in the Chesapeake and thousands of dead crabs washing up on the shores of England. How much more “end of the world” can you get than that?

And isn’t 2012 just a little insulted that Harold Camping tried to steal its thunder twice this year by predicting the end of the world would commence in May, then recalculating his prediction to October? Many Christians who believe the apocalypse is coming can’t say with absolute certainty that it would happen this or next year. Though as Glenn Beck, the arbiter of all things apocalyptic and conspiratorial, pointed out, it’s never too early to prepare for the end of the world.

Oh, and let’s not forget all those natural disasters that happened this year. Japan was hit by an earthquake that triggered both a tsunami and a full-fledged nuclear crisis. The United States was hit by an earthquake and a hurricane around the same time. And on top of all that, it snowed before Halloween! Now that’s a nightmare before Christmas.

It’s no coincidence that Time marked “The Protestor” as the Person of the Year. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, 2011 has been a strong year for people-powered protests. But don’t make the mistake of thinking everything has turned out for the better. The ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was a mere prelude to the equally repressive (if not more so) tactics of the military leadership now in charge of the country. Protestors in nations like Syria are being targeted for death by their leaders. Kim Jong-Un has been the Supreme Leader of North Korea for less than a week, and he has already issued a threat of war against South Korea. The Libyan rebels who united against the regime of Moammar Gaddafi have now split into different factions competing for power. In fact, this week al-Qaeda sent forces to Libya to establish a “fighting force” there.

There’s something poetic about all of this; the crumbling of the forces of evil only to find another evil taking its place. And sure, there is no “scientific basis” or “actual evidence” that the world is ending. In fact, NASA has insisted the only big event to occur in December 2012 will be the winter solstice. But doesn’t it feel like the world is collapsing around us?

I mean, in a year marked with international protests and the like, the most Googled name of 2011 was Rebecca Black. Also on the list (in order) are Google+, the late Ryan Dunn, Casey Anthony, Battlefield 3, the as-of-yet unannounced iPhone 5, etc. The Fukushima nuclear plant ranked eighth on the list, however, which was beaten by the next-highest search: Adele. Meanwhile, the most searched name on Bing was “Justin Bieber.” And if we live in a world where people are on the tip of their toes listening to the insane ramblings of Charlie Sheen or taking Donald Trump seriously as a presidential candidate, it’s possible the end may already be upon us.

And sure, talking about the end of the world in the media is just a way for people to give airtime to a story that the vast majority of human beings thinks is beyond absurd and the only reason they might do it is for publicity and maybe some ratings, but what if the apocalypse actually does happen next year? Every single newscaster who reported on the end of the world should be up for a posthumous Pulitzer if it happens. And propping up the end of the world isn’t just good for ratings, it’s also good for the tourism industry. Mexico is launching a year-long campaign to attract tourists to Mayan territory so they can marvel at how such primitive people could predict an event so far in the future.

Now let us hypothesize that the world does not, in fact, come to an end next year. The question remains: when will it end? Isaac Newton predicted the world would not end any time before 2060, so if we’re all still alive in 2013, congratulations! We have anywhere between 47 and several million years left to go!

Personally, if the world does end in my lifetime, I’m hoping it’s less like that awful 2012 movie and more like The Walking Dead. Now that would be an end of the world to remember. (If anyone were around afterwards that to remember it.)

THE 5 BEST PANELS OF 2011

1. Who: Richard Just, Jodi Kantor, Ryan Lizza, moderated by Franklin Foer
Where: New America NYC
When: December 8, 2011
What we said: “One issue that hasn’t been addressed this season, the panel noted, is the global economic crisis, which Lizza pointed out is something that can’t be blamed on Obama, so it hasn’t been a part of the GOP talking points.

This event was sold on the weird and wacky characters and events from the past few months, yet the debate centered more on the question of where we go from here. Herman Cain’s name barely showed up, for one. It seems that it’s time to get serious.”

See the full review.

2. Who: Gay Talese, David Carr, Andrew Rossi, moderated by Bill Keller
Where: Times Center
When: June 14, 2011
What we said: “So will The Times live on? Rossi isn’t sure if journalism will remain the same on a new platform. Carr, however, thinks The Timeswill survive, even if only as a status symbol. When you’re on your iPad, he said, it’s impossible to tell if you’re reading The New York Times or not. Echoing this sentiment were two people sitting in front of us at the event who made it difficult to tell if they were tweeting about the panel on their iPhones or just checking their email.”

See the full review.

3. Who: Seth Meyers, John Mulaney, Marika Sawyer, Colin Jost, Erik Kenward, Bryan Tucker, Chris Kelly, moderated by Steve Gaydos
Where: Paley Center for Media
When: November 13, 2011
What we said: “They rely heavily on the audience at dress rehearsal on Saturday evening to telegraph what’s working and what’s missing the mark. Their approval is reflected through their ratings – which the writers claim doesn’t influence them – but another gauge  is Internet reaction. The writers say that SNL was made for YouTube well before YouTube even existed. After all these years, it continues to connect with new viewers and to cater to the times.”

See the full review.

4. Who: Michael Lewis, interviewed by Ira Glass
Where: 92nd St. Y
When: February 3, 2011
What we said: “Glass, one of the best interviewers out there, can make a heavy topic like finance come alive. He clearly has an affinity for Lewis, who he declares is one of the few journalists who does fact-based reporting while clearly having a good time doing it. Glass was at the top of his game, engaging with Lewis, reacting to both his answers and his implications, as he sought closure and a villain to blame for the economic downturn. But what Glass said he found in Lewis’ book, The Big Short, were ‘heroes’ in the form of bankers.”

See the full review.

5. Who: Nicholas Lemann, Stephen B. Shepard, moderated by Myron Kandel
Where: JCC of Manhattan
When: October 5, 2011
What we said: “We used to rely on news anchors and editors to determine the biggest news of the day. Now, we each choose for ourselves, and have the abilities to deliver our selections to others. What hasn’t changed is that people still rely on those they trust to help curate the news. And since there are more media options now than ever, everyone can find and design his or her own diet. Although it might be time to begin worrying about fragmentation…”

See the full review.

THE 10 BEST QUOTES OF 2011

1. “The thing to fixate on is not the weirdness of the weird candidates, it’s the weirdness of the normal candidate.”
- Richard Just believes the Republicans are scraping at the bottom of the barrel this time around

2. “That’s not that interesting…if it was that interesting, I would have asked the question.”
– Anderson Cooper jokingly takes issue with Reiss’ decision to begin a response with “Here’s something interesting…”

3. “One of the things the Internet did was pick apart the newspaper bit by bit.”
- Nicholas Lemann says that have more sources to get the information and resources we used to find inside of newspapers pages

4. “You don’t ever change what you know to be truth.”
– Oliver Stone takes issue with directors who don’t document fact correctly

5. “The people who get the joke don’t need an explanation. Those who don’t get it won’t understand the explanation.”
- Gilbert Gottfried explains his lack of explanations

6. “Criticism operates in a business environment that it can’t ignore or deny.”
- David Denby says it’s impossible to separate movies from the studios behind them

7. “It’s never about the character, it’s always about the story…I’ve always likened it to a rock n’ roll band. If the band is good, the bass player is cool.”
- Kiefer Sutherland aspires to be that bass player

8. “One thing we have in this family is the belief in freedom of the press even if it’s all about the press. And that’s a great tradition.”
- Gay Talese praises the Sulzbergers for their commitment to the paper

9. “Where do they pay kids who don’t know anything lots of money? Wall Street!”
- Michael Lewis says that some young people were drawn to banking after they read Lewis’ Liar’s Poker

10. “So much of this business is bluffing.”
- Josh Radnor responds to Akerman’s revelation that she had to convince Radnor she could take on the lead role

Michael Weinreb, Grantland:

I know that I’m in denial. I know that I’m working through multiple layers of anger and disgust and neurosis and angst. I know that I’m too emotionally attached to the situation to offer any kind of objective take, though I don’t think I realized how emotionally attached I was until this occurred. I never understood how much of an effect both football and a sense of place had on my persona.

Torie Bosch, Slate:

Paterno’s role is the biggest betrayal. For all of us who went to Penn State over the last few decades, Paterno served as an honorary grandfather. He might be a curmudgeon, and he might be doddering, but you always felt that he had everyone’s best interest at heart. Not anymore.

Mike Missanelli, Philadelphia Inquirer:

It’s unspeakable. But it’s a culture cultivated by years and years of drinking the Penn State Kool-Aid. In the mid-1970s, when Nixon was covering up crimes in the White House, the American people were held hostage, but we weren’t really victims. Penn State’s cover-up put innocent children at risk, and that’s a stain on a great institution of higher learning that unfortunately will never fully be removed.

Shawn Hubler, Los Angeles Times:

More than three decades have passed since I left Pennsylvania. I live, of all places, in California now. I have tried, this week, to explain to friends here how good people could be so blinded by loyalty that unspeakable acts might transpire, right before them, and still feel unable to ask the obvious questions. I’ve tried to explain my own mixed feelings to myself.

Mike Matvey, New York Daily News:

The shame of being associated with the university is too great. The shame of the top officials who stood by while Sandusky allegedly preyed on these young boys is too much. Too intense. I went running Saturday, picked up my Penn State hat, and decided against wearing it. Not sure when I will put it on again.

The episode’s interviews were equally promoted online, and there is a serious case to be made that American audiences would be more interested in what a model famous on our televisions has to say than a 30-year-old band, however influential the latter may be. But one would be remiss not to admit that, as far as marketing throughout the history of television, one woman whose job it is to look beautiful will always trump three men. It’s a rule of thumb in advertising that could very well not have been in effect here, but to the extent of my knowledge, the ads really did only highlight one of the interviews.

RELATED: In Honor Of MTV’s 30th Anniversary, The Five Best Music Videos You’ve Never Seen

This is not to accuse anyone of sexism, or even of being preferential in choosing who to highlight, but to use these interviews as a launchpad for a bigger discussion: in 2011 America, would a network be more willing to promote a beautiful image catering to straight men than a quality piece that does not play into the sex game as much? Perhaps the idea that one interview was far more heavily advertised than the other only served as an inspiration for a discussion on the matter of sex in advertising because it is a topic that has been floating around elsewhere– Details magazine published a piece on male objectification in the media in which they attribute the rise of this phenomenon to “the male gaze turning on itself.” It furthers a view that seems impossible to erode: a general belief that visual sexual cues happen to work better with men.

Jezebel’s review of the piece highlights this exact problem, and drives home the fact that using the male observer as a starting point for all advertising puts the horse behind the carriage:

But DETAILS overlooks one of the other crucial drivers of this increase in male narcissism: the growing awareness that women look. Not so long ago, psychologists insisted that most women simply weren’t visually aroused. Women, we were told, might have an aesthetic appreciation for a handsome guy, but they weren’t actively lusting after what they saw. After twenty years of being given permission to gaze on the hot and shirtless (from Marky Mark to Taylor Lautner), women have become more vocal than ever before about what they like to look at — and what they’re thinking about when they look. The old myth that women aren’t visual has been debunked by everyone from Sex and the City to the writers and readers at this very site.

Why must it be that appealing to straight male sensibilities will result in more sales of whatever product or service is being provided? Women constitute a plurality of the population; what invisible law of nature dictates (aside from residual and, thankfully, mostly debunked sexist pseudopsychology) that women will not respond to visual stimuli as much or more than men do? If women aren’t treated as part of the target demo, it is nearly impossible for them to become loyal customers in large numbers, and when the entire industry seems to neglect to cater to women, they can’t legitimately claim women aren’t responding as positively as men– whether it be to every show on Spanish TV or cable news or, yes, an interview with pop culture icons they probably would have missed, to bring the discussion full circle. Of course, there is a possibility that an alternative universe where women were rarely used as aesthetic objects would result in fewer eyeballs, but this is mostly uncharted territory in American media, and very much worth exploring.

RELATED: The End of Sexism

All of this, of course, is to say: Heidi Klum is pretty and all, but Piers Morgan really buried the lede on this one, if by “lede” you mean “very pretty and extremely interesting pop icons that didn’t really have to be all that interesting to compel women to watch.”

Below a segment of Morgan’s interview with Duran Duran (on the death of Amy Winehouse, via CNN:

Americans are evenly split on whether the media works to “hurt democracy,” but a large majority are certain that the media often presents inaccurate information — 66 percent, in fact, compared to 34 percent when the survey debuted in 1985 — and 72 percent believe that reporters try to cover up their mistakes when they get something wrong. Only a quarter of respondents thought news outlets get their facts straight.

That said, 57 percent of respondents believe reporters are professional, and 68 percent think they care about the quality of their work.

In an age where news networks are increasingly open about subscribing to a certain ideology, 63 percent of respondents said that reporters are “politically biased in their reporting,” with only 25 percent believing otherwise. And, unsurprisingly, there’s this:

Further, people rate the performance of the news organizations they rely on much more positively than they rate the performance of news organizations generally.

Perhaps oddly, even though many Americans profess to have negative opinions about news outlets in general, they are more inclined to believe the information they receive from local news sources. To wit:

The public is most inclined to believe information from local news organizations: 69% say they trust such information a lot (17%) or some (52%). Almost six-in-ten (59%) say the same about national news organizations: 14% say they trust a lot of what they learn from the national media, while 45% say they have some trust in information provided by national news organizations.

Overall, self-identified Republicans were most trusting of local and national news organizations:

h/t Pew Research Center

If you think about it, Howell can be an effective hypothetical tool to use in such a debate. He could not be more of an elitist if he tried: his demeanor, manner of speaking, and treatment of the other castaways is very snobbish.

But what truly makes Howell a perfect weapon to use is that he is unabashedly proud of his wealth. He brought thousands of dollars to the island. He brags about all his money to the others, and wife laments that during the Depression, he lost money and became “just a millionaire.” He is THE rich guy. Liberals paint him as a typical rich conservative who hoards his money and gives nothing back, while conservatives make him the stereotypical elitist liberal with no empathy for regular Americans.

Howell was used by Senator Orrin Hatch several months ago while speaking in Congress about tax hikes.

Hatch explains:

I want to be clear that I do not lump all of these folks in with Bill Gates, LeBron James, Warren Buffett, or Gilligan’s Island‘s resident millionaire Thurston Howell III.

Unlike Hatch, many conservatives have used Howell’s name in reference to establishment Democrats. Conservative blog The Last Refuge described a video of Nancy Pelosi chanting “Hands off our Medicare!” as “Mrs. Thurston Howell attempts to lead the crowd.” One blogger referenced “John (Thurston Howell III) Kerry.” And one blogger even thinks Obama is worse than Howell.

[Y]ou have America’s leader, probably one of the most aloof and indifferent presidents we have witnessed in the modern era, jetting off to the liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard. Were Thurston Howell III alive today he would be appalled by the presence of these neo-Marxist, capitalism-hating nogoodniks taking over “the Vineyud.” Wonder how Kennebunkport is looking these days?

But the meme has been used more often by liberals, attempting to link him to Republicans and frame them as friends of the wealthy. A letter in The Republic from earlier this month compared Howell to John Boehner, and this political cartoon illustrated the debate between Republicans and labor groups.

Here’s an excerpt from a PressDemocrat op-ed:

Thurston Howell III, remained rich even when paying taxes at rates much higher than those which apply today. He and Lovey Howell provide Gilligan with proof enough that the rich will do fine under most any circumstances, so it’s about time that the Skipper, Professor, Ginger and Mary Ann, together with the rest of us, demand fairness from our elected representatives.

And blogger Roy Edroso invoked the billionaire while throwing cold water on Rick Perry‘s presidential campaign.

I doubt things will be improved by President Rick Perry, who will upon inauguration give the last $32.98 in the Treasury to Thurston Howell III and ask America to pray for money.

Which brings us back full circle to Rachel Maddow. In another segment of her program last night, she played an ad for Orville Redenbacher popcorn featuring the characters of Mr. & Mrs. Howell. In the segment, which you can watch here, she insisted the ad was an “exercise in 2012 presidential campaign analysis,” and asked if this would be a year where voters would go for an obscenely wealthy candidate.

Would you vote for Thurston Howell III? The country-clubbing millionaire who, for some reason, brought a bunch of ascots and a smoking jacket on a three-hour boat tour in 1965. When voting for president, would you vote for Thurston?

It’s all well and good for pundits to invoke fictional characters when going after their political rivals, but why this particular one? Why not Montgomery Burns, a character who still exists on TV? What about Gordon Gekko? Daddy Warbucks? George Bluth? Lex Luthor?

I’m not old enough to understand the cultural impact of Gilligan’s Island, but it seems to have left a lasting impression on people, since he has become the go-to stereotype for rich elitism even though his star has been eclipsed by many others in the media landscape. Perhaps one day we will see a campaign ad comparing Thurston Howell III to a presidential candidate. But for today’s voters, a face from an old TV show isn’t going to cut it. Update your analogies, people!

In addition to big media influencers, the list also includes women from various other competitive fields, including tech (Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg comes in at #5), entertainment (Lady Gaga finds herself in the #11 spot), business (Walmart heiress Alice Walton comes in at #85) and politics (Michele Bachmann gets the #22 spot, while Sarah Palin comes in at #34.) Topping the list this year is German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

For a look at the full list — including bios of those who made the cut — visit Forbes‘ website.

In the meantime, take a look at the gallery below and tell us — Do you agree with Forbes‘ media picks? Who would you have added or left off?

Jill Abramson, #8 (1 of 10)

Next ►

Executive Editor, The New York Times

The Poynter Institute’s ever-valuable Romenesko blog offers a glimpse into the accounting ledgers of organizations created to make sure the reports presented in the media are balanced (in their favor). If you’re a regular Mediaite reader, you’re likely at least somewhat familiar with the Media Research Center and its liberal cousin, Media Matters for America.

Here’s what some of their respective employees make annually. (Update: For more on where this information comes from, exactly, take a look at Jim Romenesko‘s post) :

At MRC -

Brent Bozell; president/director; $422,804
Brent Baker; vice president; $126,300
David Martin; executive vp/asst. treasurer; $215,000
Dan Gainor; Business & Media Institute vice president; $122,400
Terry Jeffrey; CNSNews.com editor-in-chief; $122,400

At Media Matters –

David Brock; chairman/CEO; $286,804
Eric Burns; president; $240,579
Tate Williams; chief of staff; $162,812
Eric Boehlert; senior fellow; $115,000
Ari Rabin-Havt; VP-communications and strategy; $134,484

Keep in mind that these individuals, composed of a statistically significant number of men named Brent, are not journalists or reporters. Rather, they monitor existing news reports, assess them, and present that information, however filtered through or particular lens or agenda, to the public (“Like Mediaite editors!” one of you might write, perhaps with a quip about the estimated weight, sexual orientation or living situation of any given Mediaite editor). In the words of [REDACTED], a jaded media type with firsthand experience of such organizations, these are “well-paid lawyers in a well-funded sport of diminishing media entities disguised as revealing bias.”

So, from where does this money come? MRC receives funding from a number of sources, including Exxon Mobil. (According to SourceWatch.org, other sources include The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Inc, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Castle Rock Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc, the The Carthage Foundation and the JM Foundation.)

Media Matters, meanwhile, receives “more than $2 million in donations from wealthy liberals,” (again, according to SourceWatch), such “Leo Hindery, Jr., the former cable magnate; Susie Tompkins Buell, who is co-founder of the fashion company Esprit and is close to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and Ms. Buell’s husband Mark; and James C. Hormel, a San Francisco philanthropist whose appointment as ambassador to Luxembourg was delayed for a year and a half in the late 1990′s by conservative lawmakers protesting what they called his promotion of a ‘gay lifestyle.’” It also receives funds from the Democracy Alliance.

h/t Poynter / Romenesko

You might recall that host Joe Scarborough recently took issue with a recent New York Times article by Paul Krugman about often misleading rhetoric calling for balance.

Said Kerry:

And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it’s exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual.

It doesn’t deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what’s real, of who’s accountable, of who is not accountable, of who’s real, who isn’t, who’s serious, who isn’t?

Take a look at the clip, via MSNBC:

The he said/she said that arose from yesterday’s heated budget meeting, with Rep. Cantor immediately running to the press to complain that the President had stormed off abruptly after lecturing him, is the catnip of pundit class hall monitors nationwide. No one who wasn’t in the room knows what happened for sure, but conflicting reports seem to agree on this much: during the budget meet, Rep. Cantor suggested a series of small votes as a short-term solution, something that had been tabled long before and would complicate the situation even further. This made President Obama launch into a diatribe about patience and maturity and Ronald Reagan and the American people, etc etc (Democrats say it was “incredible,” Republicans claim it proves the President is a “crybaby”). No one wins, but America loses– it’s a familiar story.

Perhaps it is apt that, given their leadership in covering of the current episode of Rugrats playing out in the Capitol building, it is Politico that runs a piece condemning all of Congress for being “bozos” and dives into the partisan fray by complaining Republicans won’t submit to Democratic demands. That piece’s author, Roger Simon, blames the American people for electing the the current crop of legislators and demands they do better next time. But blaming the American people for making false choices among various breeds of political show dogs ignores the fact that only a very narrow personality type would be attracted to the national stage the media provides our legislature. Congress is a place for pure-bred, poofy-haired, yappy Malteses, not for your neighbor’s smart but reclusive German Shepard mix. Curbed egos need not apply.

In many ways, Congress is a self-selecting elite. While the job requires, on paper, that the employee adopt a certain set of responsibilities that may appeal to a wide audience of potential legislators, ultimately the perks and pitfalls of being a public official become deciding factors for anyone contemplating a run. In an ideal system, those who are best at lawmaking and compromise would ascend to the highest ranks of Congress; in our system– the best of all known political systems– those that assume leadership roles must revel in the cruelty of the national spotlight. There is something of the circus animal in the modern national-level politician, a “look what I can do!” bombast that has little to do with the actual job description and far more with the perks and pitfalls of the limelight.

It’s not all bad news, however: the halls of Congress also attract the sort of overachievers, bookworms, and legal perfectionists that revel in the knowledge that their words have consequences. Most of the work they do doesn’t make the Washington Post, let alone daytime coverage on C-SPAN. Those with a only passing interest in government and a passion for being important no longer need to bother with actual politics– that’s what cable news and existentially troubling national bus tours are for.

Ultimately, the job attracts only the thickest-skinned of publicity hounds, who may or may not, on occasion, also understand how to run a government. The reason Mitch Daniels isn’t in the running for 2012 but Donald Trump is, somehow, is the same reason Ronnie Magro stars in Jersey Shore and not RuPaul’s Drag Race, is the same reason Rep. Nancy Pelosi is in Congress and not working for a private think tank, and why some of our potentially greatest legislators work on their passions from the anonymous chambers of the Brookings Institute or the Heritage Foundation. Political journalism, believe it or not, is a multi-million-dollar industry, and politics is America’s national sport. The horse race, the soundbite, and the gaffe are as vital to the health of the Republic as anything sponsored on the Floor.

The system is built to attract a certain genre– someone who doesn’t mind fraternizing with lobbyists and pouts when his or her name isn’t in that morning’s edition of Mike Allen‘s Playbook. And while Rep. Cantor may now be the chosen one to carry the mantle of “everything that is wrong in American politics today,” to isolate him as the exception would be to veil our eyes from the reality that the compulsions of his ego are no different than that of most national politicians, and that without it he– nor anyone else in Congress– would have had the fire in the belly to run for office in the first place.

Does it make Rep. Cantor an unsympathetic, sniveling brat to have spent a very important meeting on the future of this nation pushing the President’s buttons, only to run wailing into the welcoming bosom of the press after being spanked by the Presidential chancleta? Sure, but it does nothing to distinguish him from the menagerie of peacocks, show dogs, and assorted preening wild things grazing about their natural habitat, the halls of the Capitol Building.

I am rarely accurate with prognostications or predictions but I am feeling pretty confident about two things: 1) there will be another high-profile trial in the not too distant future, like Casey Anthony‘s, that will capture the attention of the nation and the media; and 2) it will be followed by the hand-wringing and utter despair about the future of media that trail every high profile case. In fact, there is no surer way to be the belle of your media critic’s ball than to blast the Casey Anthony media coverage. From hackneyed assertions that “it’s not journalism,” to characterizations of it as “merchandising in tragedy”, to the populist position that it’s “just entertainment,” the Anthony coverage, like so many trials before it, serves as the ultimate media scapegoat.

Despite the fact that I covered the story as much as almost anyone (well no, since I do not work for HLN), I’m not going to defend the amount of coverage, nor claim that the future of the Republic somehow rests on the shoulders of the trial of a 20-something year-old accused and now acquitted, child killer. Yes, high profile trials can be riveting and I believe they do lead to a better understanding of our third branch of government, but there’s no question they are covered at the expense of far more important issues like the economy, Libya, the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, etc.

No, this case, and the spectacle trials before it, are the sorts of stories many are too sheepish to admit they are closely following, much less actively covering. HLN saw huge ratings increases, but they won’t be seeing any industry accolades for that coverage. In fact, HLN and star host Nancy Grace have now become piñatas for “real” (a.k.a capital J) journalists, and those attempting to ingratiate themselves with the folks who take the proverbial bat to trial coverage.

As for Nancy Grace, she and I went head to head for almost six weeks every morning on Good Morning America. I agreed with her some of the time, and disagreed with her at least as often. Did I think her reference to Casey Anthony as “tot mom” was silly? Sure. But Nancy was honest about her position on the case and while she can be over the top, her take was based in the facts as she saw them. That transparency allows viewers to decide if they believe she is responding like a mother or a “monster”.

But there is a far bigger problem here. Many of the most outspoken critics (amateur and professional) of the Anthony coverage are the very same people who relish intensive political coverage. They spend hours upon hours on discussion and analysis of who is up or down–who is running or who is not, and who made the most egregious gaffe that day. Yet the horse-race political coverage and gotcha moments that define most of today’s political coverage are not just equally insignificant as news events, they are far more insidious.

When the political media spends days upon days covering and analyzing President Obama’s birth certificate, Sarah Palin‘s reference to Paul Revere, wall to wall coverage of Donald Trump‘s fake Presidential run (I’ll even exclude Weiner coverage for now), and every other misstep, poor choice of words, and invented scandal, they are not just wasting precious media time, they are also forcing our political leaders to define candidacies based on largely irrelevant media moments. Even though Casey Anthony did not receive the sort of justice most believe she deserved, at least the public walked away with some understanding of why the system works the way it does. Can we say the same for the public’s takeaway from intensive coverage of political gaffes? I can explain the legal concept of reasonable doubt but it’s harder to explain unreasonable doubts about political leaders that result from often inane media coverage.

Don’t get me wrong, this site traffics in these gotcha moments along with the best of them. Mediaite covers the media so what they cover is what is covered here. As Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher once said, blaming Mediaite for covering these stories is like “criticiz(ing) the ground for being wet because it’s raining.”

But I also have not seen editors here take a self-righteous position about the perils of the Casey Anthony coverage. For many media critics it’s just naked hypocrisy to laud political shows that cover politics (and little to no policy), and then take the stage front and center to lead the anti-media Anthony crusade. Many of them would, I am sure, claim that they do criticize the media’s political coverage as well. But it just never seems to have that same frantic tone as do their critiques of more innocuous high profile trials.

In the end, the media does cater to the desires of its audience. After all, most media is a business and the news media in particular must balance that ratings tug with the need to stay focused on the stories that should matter. The Casey Anthony coverage is an easy target but the journalistic stone throwers should have far more important targets to hit.

The “Tequila Party,” CNN reports, is a group organized by Cuban-Americans Augustin “Gus” Garcia and Belinda Garcia-Blase to get out the vote in the Latino community. “It’s more about registering to vote and then voting than supporting particular candidates,” CNN reports, noting that their first event, scheduled for June 4 in Arizona, deliberately omits references to any particular politician and instead aims to “impact the 2012 elections.” Garcia notes that the choice of “Tequila” as the name for the group was a decision based on the fact that Latin Americans are “a culture that likes humor” and “are not Puritans.” “You have to laugh because there is no logic in racism,” Garcia told CNN, noting that Latin Americans are “united by culture and language.” Garcia-Blase echoed these sentiments, adding that “Latins are the neighbor next door that brings global society.”

The entire piece on the Tequila Party is a hefty bundle of fodder for cultural criticism in its own right, but the above summary captures most of the egregiously problematic language. The simplest way to begin is by pointing out that Tequila is an almost exclusively Mexican drink (due to Spanish imperialism, the Philippines had a hand in its development as well)– thus not ideal to represent the entire continent of South America, of which Mexico is not a part, nor any nation of the West Indies. Then there’s the generalization that Latin Americans are “a culture that likes humor,” which whittles down the role of about 600 million people to court jesters, just standing around ready to make the rest of the world laugh. It is also worthy of note that equating an entire culture with an alcoholic drink is the sort of ethnically insensitive generalization that, if made by anyone who isn’t Latin American, would cause an uproar. Furthermore, while technically correct in calling Latin Americans “not Puritans,” the continent has a rich Catholic tradition that serves to undermine the claim that socially conservative values are not taken seriously in the region. Then again, if the initial premise is that Latinos are “humorous,” the conclusion that they don’t take anything seriously comes naturally.

Perhaps most emblematic of the recurring problem the media has had with understanding the dynamics of the Latin American community is Garcia’s assertion that all of Latin America has “a culture and language.” Even excluding the fact that Brazilians speak Portuguese, the differences in regional dialects are so vast that it is often said that Argentine Spanish is unintelligible to, say, a Mexican native and vice versa. Racially, Latin America is as diverse as the United States or more– for example, 55% of Mexican Americans identify as white, while 2% identify as indigenous, and less than 0% as black. Cuban Americans, in turn, identify as 90% white, 5% black, and less than 0% indigenous. The black populace is highest among Dominican Americans at 14%. And the cultural differences, particularly in America, are so stark that finding any issue that cuts across the entire spectrum of the Latino population is nearly impossible.

As per the 2010 US Census, three nationalities make up more than 75% of the Latin American population in America: Mexican Americans (63%), Puerto Ricans (9.2%) and Cuban Americans (3.5%). 7.9% hail from Central America and 5.5% from South America, with Guatemalans, Salvadorians, Ecuadorians and Colombians making up the top nationalities in both categories. While language may generally be considered a binding link between these nationalities, their political interests are significantly impacted by their histories in America, and are far too disparate from which to cull a definitive voting block. Take, for instance, education. The U.S. Census reports only 13% of Latinos have college degrees, but this average ignores major disparities among nationalities. Only 6% of Mexican Americans graduate from college as per 2000 Census data; 20% of Cuban Americans do. The other large Latino group in America, Puerto Ricans, come in at 10%. A constituency with a 20% college graduation rate is going to have different political concerns than one with only a 6% graduation rate, and averaging the two out does nothing to address the specific issues of each community. The high school graduation rates are even more disparate: 69% of Cuban Americans graduate high school to 49% of Mexican Americans.

But education is not the topic most commonly considered a significant policy issue in the Latin American community. An analysis of coverage of Latinos on cable news (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Fox Business) in May shows that, of the 51 references to Latinos on television (eight of which were about Mexicans, one about Puerto Ricans), 62% of that coverage discussed immigration. Given that, by nature, many Latinos had to emigrate to come to America, immigration is certainly an important issue and will have an impact on the 2012 elections. Yet linking immigration so strongly to Latinos ignores the fact that, for most Latinos, amnesty for illegal immigrants is not a topic that appears on their radar. Of the three largest Latino groups, two are legally incapable of it. Puerto Ricans are natural-born American citizens, while Cubans who touch American soil– no matter how they arrive there– are given political amnesty. And given the proximity of Mexico to the United States, a significant chunk of that population is American-born, particularly in the Southwest regions that were once part of Mexico. That leaves a far smaller number of Latin Americans directly impacted by immigration reform than statistics that treat Latinos as one ethnic group indicate.

As America’s Latino population increases and their presence in the political sphere becomes more pronounced, those who cover American politics are sure to hit more and more roadblocks should the continue to treat Latinos as a monolithic group. Just as the political interests of, say, Egyptians have little in common with those of Rwandans, so too do the political interests of Chileans align little with those of Dominicans, and the media should adapt accordingly as populations assimilate and develop. The regression in sociological thought presented by coverage of confused-identity groups such as the Tequila Party only serve to expose the symptoms of a media evolving at a far slower pace than the groups they intend to cover.

[Photo via]

Limbaugh then went on to explain how the media became what it is now in his eyes– through the fall of President Richard Nixon. “Ever since the media took down Richard Nixon is when [sic] the whole reason why people want to get into journalism changed,” he argued, noting that people now enter journalism to try to “destroy somebody,” but that there was also a duty among conservatives to fight back. “If you’re willing to let the media take our people out, fine,” he advised his audience. “Stop complaining about being liberal.”

The segment from Friday’s program below:

[h/t]

We hear that Ephron, who is an editor-at-large at the Huffington Post in addition to the guiding force behind its “divorce” vertical, hosted a dinner party in celebration of HuffPost’s recent merger with Aol, which made Huffington president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group.

The Indian feast (prepared by Ephron herself) was enjoyed by several bold face names working in media: ABC anchor and correspondent Diane Sawyer (who had just returned from Japan); writer, director and producer Mike Nichols; ABC anchor Christiane Amanpour; journalist and professor Jamie Rubin; Frank Rich (who recently left The New York Times for New York Magazine); Rich’s wife, The New York Times‘ Alex Witchel; MSNBC host Joe Scarborough; Scarborough co-host, Mika Brzezinski, attorney and philanthropist David Boies and his wife, Mary Boies; magazine publisher Mort Zuckerman; Newsweek / Daily Beast editor in chief Tina Brown; and her husband, writer and former Sunday Times editor Harold Evans.

Not a bad crowd for a Wednesday night supper.

Starting to feel overwhelmed by the onslaught of brackets organized by blogs, magazines and TV shows that use March Madness “bracketology” as a construct for some meta media commentary? Yeah, so are we. So far, we’ve stumbled upon brackets ranging from the truly clever to the amusingly cutesy to the downright obnoxious. Now, if you happen to be in need of some sort of guide to navigate the clever from the clumsy, well. We’re here to help with our very own (You guessed it!) even cleverer, cutesier (to wit) and far more obnoxious meta bracket: The Ultimate Meta Media Bracket Bracket™.

We’ve noticed a plethora of media outlets creating cutesy faux tournament formats to judge and rank everything from the predictable (Sexiest woman!) to the precious (Dog vs. Cat) to the just plain bad (Bad things!). So as a service to our dear readers, we’ve arranged our own bracket of content modules for you to enjoy from a safe distance of ironic detachment. Before we launch into the actual bracket, let’s first break down our “Regions.”

Just as there are regions in the NCAA Men’s and Women’s basketball tournaments, we’ve crafted four categories of participants. They are:

The Sexy Celebrity Link Bait Region

Esquire‘s Sexiest Woman Alive Bracket.
Esquire, the magazine for men who enjoy expensive hair gel and deodorant ethically crafted by lesbian Tibetan monks, has brought back its Sexiest Woman Alive bracket. (“You like March Madness and you like women,” claims Esquire, alienating every male friend I’ve ever had in one fell swoop. “So why not combine the two all over again?”) This year’s tournament includes the likes of Victoria’s Secret model Adrianna Lima and Kate Middleton, the pretty commoner poised to marry England’s Prince William. Next year belongs to me.

Playboy.com’s March Gladness For NBDoubleD(cough)
Meanwhile, Playboy.com, a website for men who enjoy lesbian Tibetan monks, has organized a March Gladness bracket for the “NBDoubleD.” Get it?! BOOBS! Players can choose between this one girl’s set of airbrushed boobs or that other young lady’s set of airbrushed buttocks. And, hey, we’re pretty sure you only need one hand to play.

Go Fug Yourself’s Fug Madness
For the fashionable and/or judgy among us, there’s Go Fug Yourself‘s Fug Madness bracket. Can Gossip Girl actress Taylor Momsen‘s propensity for wearing little more than combat boots and tangled hair extensions outweigh pop star Ke$ha‘s insistence that a crumpled Burger King crown and a cork constitute a perfectly acceptable ensemble? The anticipation is giving me an ulcer, which I will proceed to bedazzle.

Fafarazzi’s Celebrity March Mayhem
Celebrity gossip site Fafarazzi is offering several pools for its readers to participate in as part of its Celebrity March Mayhem, including ones for TV, movies, music and more. For instance, which doe-eyed, floppy-haired actor occupies more real estate in your heart: Zac Efron, or Katie Holmes?

>>>Next – The Ironically Detached Earnest Fun Region.

Well, Huffington decided to respond to Keller’s claims yesterday evening, calling his piece an “exceptionally misinformed attack.” Huffington echoed the snarky tone of Keller’s article in her response, and even managed to get in a dig at News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch in the process. Now that’s multi-tasking:

After opening his piece by patting himself on the back so hard I’d be surprised if he didn’t crack a rib (it seems everyone — even Woody Allen and those folks on Twitter — thinks he’s super “powerful” and “influential”!), Keller turned to the putative subject of his column: “the ‘American Idol’-ization of news” and the evils of “aggregation.” Hearkening back to the glory years when Rupert Murdoch and his minions labeled sites that aggregate the news “parasites,” “content kleptomaniacs,” “vampires,” and “tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet” (the news industry equivalent of “your mama wears army boots!” although, not quite as persuasive), Keller says of aggregation: “In Somalia this would be called piracy. In the mediasphere, it is a respected business model.”

The response, as most responses to personal digs end up doing, sets the tone for a “he said, she said” squabble rather than an important discussion on the ethics of online reporting in a changing media climate, which both these pieces could have had the opportunity to be.

The trouble with this (or the benefit of this, depending on how you look at it) is, of course, the same we expressed in our look at Keller’s original article: Both entries’ “churlish” tone is part of what makes them so gosh darn sharable across the internet. Of course every media writer is going to sink his teeth into a feud between Keller and Huffington (Print vs. Web! Old vs. New! Lib vs… Lib!), but the personal digs and smattering of jokes make these of interest to those beyond the small media bubble wherein everyone is constantly writing about what his neighbor is writing about his neighbor.

In short, Keller’s decision to tout his inclusion on various “most influential” lists and to call Huffington and Aol’s new reporting staff something akin to “hiring a top chef to fancy up the menu at Hooters” makes his argument – and the man himself – seem petty, or vindictive, or possibly like a “jellus h8er.” And Huffington’s choice to flaunt HuffPost’s huge numbers as a testament to the site’s quality, or closing her piece with “Ok, back to the merger,” ends up bringing both bold names down to the same level. It is a shame? Should we commence the hand-wringing and reminisce about the “good ol’ days” of journalism? Sure, maybe, as long as that hand-wringing comes with a slideshow.

Ok. Back to watching kitten videos.

Keller elects to use this influence to weigh in on The Future of Journalism in a much-discussed op-ed piece, tackling a specific issue that keeps popping up in discussions on what tomorrow might hold for those who report on – and make – the news: Content aggregation. And he sets his sights squarely on a name that has become synonymous with this “style” of presenting news online:

The queen of aggregation is, of course, Arianna Huffington, who has discovered that if you take celebrity gossip, adorable kitten videos, posts from unpaid bloggers and news reports from other publications, array them on your Web site and add a left-wing soundtrack, millions of people will come. How great is Huffington’s instinctive genius for aggregation? I once sat beside her on a panel in Los Angeles (on — what else? — The Future of Journalism). I had come prepared with a couple of memorized riffs on media topics, which I duly presented. Afterward we sat down for a joint interview with a local reporter. A moment later I heard one of my riffs issuing verbatim from the mouth of Ms. Huffington. I felt so . . . aggregated.

That, and his comparison of aggregation to piracy in Somalia, should tell you all you need to know about Keller’s thoughts on the matter.

But, he notes, aggregators like Huffington are trying to get a bigger piece of the pie by hiring a new team of reporter to create original content – even as Aol, who bought HuffPost for $315 million, lays off hundreds of employees, including many in editorial. Keller colorfully describes his feelings about the new hires thusly: “I can’t decide whether serious journalism is the kind of thing that lures an audience to a site like The Huffington Post, or if that’s like hiring a top chef to fancy up the menu at Hooters.”

Funny, sure. But… What about The New York Times’ own adventures in aggregation?

As Mashable helpfully illustrates, today the NYT.com released a revamped version of its “Recommendations” platform, which offers a curated list of articles, selected with the help of an aglorithm, that might interest individual readers. (The first two articles recommended to us were about terrorism and torture, and the third was about brow grooming for men.) Of course, Recommendations works by choosing stories from within the site itself rather than by seeking out and organizing stories from across the web, or by “unpaid bloggers.”

But, isn’t the aim essentially the same – to keep one’s readers informed, entertained and interested (while bringing in enough pageviews to bring in a good amount of money)? Of course, our perspective may be (read: is) colored by the fact that Mediaite is a site that also aggregates and presents news from various sources across television, radio, the internet and print. As we see it, our job is to seek out topics for our readers ranging from breaking news, to in-depth op-eds, to human interest stories. These, in turn, are all presented in a way that’s easily digestible, by a staff of paid editors with different areas of expertise (like law, or government, or media, or poop jokes).

The reality is, of course, that the very nature of the internet renders all news inherently sharable. Keller’s piece is a great example – it’s popped up on my Twitter and Facebook feeds nearly as many times as “news” about a certain former CBS actor. His piece is almost custom-made for aggregation: It’s relatively short, it’s punchy, it’s funny, it makes several mentions of media buzzwords and bold names.

Plus, Keller’s piece is kind of… well… snarky? It’s practically Twitgawkbook bait, dangling before the glazed-over eyes of so many content aggregating bloggers.

Author and journalism professor Adam Penenberg‘s Tweet on the matter echos our own thoughts on the tone of Keller’s piece:

Bill Keller seems quite thin-skinned. Attack the economics of aggregation from NYT POV, that’s fair. But this is needlessly churlish.

In the parlance of the internet: You mad, New York Times?

h/t New York Times

Ablow was of the opinion that the media shouldn’t judge who is incompetent, and instead, since the public is fascinated by Sheen, any effort to shed light on information related to him is exactly what the media should be doing. Ruskin, on the other hand, argued that Sheen needs help and that everyone in the media is “treating Charlie Sheen like a monkey in a zoo” and it’s unacceptable.

O’Reilly realized that if Sheen showed up in his studio he would definitely want to interview him, but admitted he would feel uneasy about it since O’Reilly felt Sheen’s delusional state would make it like interviewing someone with one hand tied behind their back. Yet if he did conduct the interview, O’Reilly promised to “give him a much harder time than the other interviewers did, I basically say to him, look it’s not about you, it’s about your kids, it about other people.” When the media circus around Sheen will end is unclear, yet now that Sheen has joined Twitter, maybe soon the bi-winning star will realize he no longer needs to be appear on television everyday to communicate with his fans.

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

Who would be the best at forming alliances? Blindsides? Who would excel at physical challenges? Who in the world of media Survivors can make fire or build a shelter that’s waterproof? Who would be a villain and who would be a hero?Who would be the best Russell-like plotter and saboteur? Who does puzzles? Who’d be most likely to find a hidden immunity idol? Who’d look best in very little clothing–and who’d be the one we’d be wishing would just, please, for the love of God put a shirt on? And, perhaps most importantly, can anybody in the media world catch and kill their own food (Sarah Palin, perhaps)?

So here are our votes for the most fantastic cast in Survivor history: Mediaite’s Media Survivor: Redemption Island. Let us know who you’d add.

Rick Sanchez (1 of 10)

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The guy is so completely overdue for redemption, and this would be the perfect vehicle. Not only is he tough (he took a taser, bro), but he's crafty. And we know he'd be quite entertaining to listen to as he speaks into the night vision camera while the rest of the tribe sleeps, telling us his plans. Could go all the way.

• Google may have already begun to claim its stake in the TV industry with the creation of GoogleTV (much to the chagrin of several networks, it turned out), but Apple will likely try and succeed where Google is losing steam with its very own iTunes-powered Apple TV.

We can totally see this happening. With American audiences now watching more than TV than ever before, it’d be foolish of Apple not to get its own piece of the pie. Plus, it seems like a natural extension for the brand – and a chance for it to offer new and innovative ways of consuming, interacting with and customizing television content. We can only hope that, in a nod to the Cult of Apple, the company chooses to call its creation the iV.

• American Idol will see its ratings fall when it replaces acerbic Brit Simon Cowell with Jennifer Lopez‘s hair extensions and whatever’s left of Steven Tyler. Meanwhile, Cowell’s new program, The X Factor, will bring in huge numbers in its bid to replicate the success it enjoyed in Britain over on our side of the pond.

Our take? A trend can only last so long, and with so many copycat talent shows sprouting up to utterly saturate the market, viewers will initially tune in to both shows out of curiosity, then grow bored as they find themselves watching a very staid, predictable formula play itself out – especially since the contestants, with few exceptions, seem consistently, well. Bland. But, given the fact that recycling Star Search turned out so well, maybe Cowell & Co. can work the same magic for a new, revamped version of American Bandstand. Hosted by Willows Smith and Palin, of course.

• Company Blog sources predict that Katie Couric will stick with her CBS Evening News gig after mulling over other, more lucrative opportunities.

Stick with us here: We think that, with her outspoken commitment to promoting colon health, Couric would be a perfect fit to host a talk show heavy on health and wellness issues on Oprah Winfrey‘s OWN network. True, that would make Couric one of the few (if not the only) talent on the network not “discovered” by Oprah, but her approachability and the trust she inspires in American viewers would make her a good fit for Oprah’s inspirational, motivational venture. Is it likely to happen? Of course not. But if it does, you’ll have to give us credit for totally calling it first.

• Experts believe that ABC News will not merge with Bloomberg, nor will CBS News enter into a relationship with CNN, both because of issues with union contracts and the kind of management struggles that nearly derailed the recent NewsBeast union.

We think Fox News Channel and MSNBC will merge to form a media giant offering opinion news, headline stories, a reality series that pits former U.S. Senators against enemy insurgents… on the ice rink, an inspirational series about rescued bunnies, “recipes Jesus might have made,” and American Gladiators reruns. Its slogan will be “Lean, But Keep Your Balance.”

You heard it here first.

The site seems to intentionally remain mysterious with an off shore registration that does not include Hillton’s name. But there is no doubt that he regularly links to and promotes it and at the least, Hilton seems to be happy to have his likeness and name on it as well.

No stranger to objectification, Perez Hilton takes the seediest elements of his flagship site and seems to expand on the Unrated version. Most of the website involves sex tapes– sex tapes with people who may have at some point interacted with someone famous, rumors of sex tapes of people famous for making sex tapes, sometimes even rumors of alleged sex tapes involving people of considerable public name recognition. More often than not, the “stars” of these alleged videos are women, either alleged mistresses, b-level stars, sex tape veterans like Paris Hilton, or jailbait celebrities of which there is very little indication a sex tape would exist (Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato most prominently in recent posts). When not discussing sex tapes, Unrated Perez posts nudes and semi-nudes of similar type folk that have either leaked to them, the internet as a whole, or have been released professionally through Playboy or similar outlets. It is difficult to categorize the site– which requires age certification to enter– as catering in anything but pornographic fare, even the posts that simply speculate as to the existence of celebrity porn.

It’s enough to elicit a fair amount of finger-wagging for its raunchiness though, of course, the Perez Hilton ethos is one of outrage and, to a certain extent, eliciting disgust. It’s a world of shock, awe, and embarrassment, but as long as a whiff of self-promotion slips through and, as Lady Gaga may put it, the Fame Monster keeps getting fed, the relationship between Hilton and Hollywood is symbiotic. There’s very little symbiotic about the relationship between the celebrities embarrassed on UnratedPerez, however, and he who profits from it.

But perhaps the most bizarre quality of the site is its nearly exclusive catering to males. The celebrities (and non-celebrities) involved in most of the posts are women. The raunchy pictures more often than not feature females, with the occasional Clay Aiken boyfriend eye candy. Overwhelmingly, the site seems to cater to straight males, the demographic that most eludes the flagship site. According to Quantcast.com, only 37% of Perez Hilton readers are male, and while the statistics don’t show, one may assume that a majority of those males are not the kind to be waiting on bated breath for the the sequel to One Night in Paris.

Perhaps this is precisely the raison d’etre of Unrated Perez: to attract the one demographic its good twin has a snowball’s chance in hell of hooking. This would explain the sheer number of posts regarding either Playboy or porn powerhouse Vivid Entertainment– perhaps also serving as sponsors– but the site’s ethos seems to run counter to what is best for PerezHilton.com. First of all, if the majority of Perez readers are female, would they not be insulted by the obvious commercial objectification of women in the hopes of seducing men to read his site? Surely some outrage would be in order from at least part of this demographic that reads Hilton for his unique Microsoft Paint genre of gossip literature, or for his outlandish cattiness, but certainly not for anything remotely resembling misogyny.

Then there are the people being profiled on the site themselves. What incentive does a celebrity– an actual celebrity, not the alleged mistress of the housekeeper who once shared a room with Lindsay Lohan‘s cousin– who cooperates with Hilton have to work with him once he posts the most embarrassing photos he could find of that person or people they know on this extracurricular site? How does this site reinforce the trust that surely must exist between publicist and blogger for the show to go on?

Many will scoff at the idea of Perez Hilton and trust in the same breath, but a completely discredited media fiend could not build the empire Hilton has at his fingertips. His personal reputation may be shaky after a series of intra-media battles that did little to make him more appealing to the mainstream. If it is, however, it is deliberately so. It elevates his often childlike demeanor to something more, makes of him an enfant terrible that haunts the people much of America (and the world) loves to hate the most. His social relevance comes from entertainment value as much as it does from the pleasure of watching him innocently peeve the stars. Let’s face it: drawing on a celebrity’s face is innocent. Vulgar as it may be, it should do no harm to a person of average self-esteem to see their face with white dots on it. It drives celebrities insane. And from thence comes Hilton’s success.

Once Hilton crosses the line into legitimately humiliating content, that cheekiness becomes malice, and malice doesn’t sell. Cheekiness sells, but ill will goes nowhere. And just as it goes nowhere with readers, those that protect the names on whose coattails Hilton puts food on the table should raise an eyebrow or two at this new endeavor. That it’s devoid of taste or brain-stimulating content is expected. How UnratedPerez.com exists in its current form– devoid of levity or good humor in any form, is the media mystery to solve.

Well, today, in a slightly awkward interview, the hero helicopter pilot, Mason Dunn, and his camera man, Ken Kilbourn, appeared on CNN to discuss the rescue and how they used the helicopter to essentially frighten the calf – which had managed to slip through ice at one point – safely to shore.

And, for the record: No. The helicopter pilot wasn’t scared. Although we’re sure the young calf felt its life was… at …steak. (Apologies.)

Frequenters of online information pirate website Wikileaks surely must have noticed something new when the company, booted out of their original domain name Wikileaks.org, landed on Swiss servers at Wikileaks.ch: the website’s proprietor, Julian Assange, reclined casually over the site’s header, in what appears to be an expensive suit and a come-hither look worthy of a teen heartthrob (that look courtesy of Forbes Magazine, whose cover the photo graces this month). Should you miss him on the homepage, Assange also asks for money to support the site on every single page of the newly-leaked US diplomatic cables in the same pose, in which there is an unequivocal appeal to his sexuality.

Why is a man wanted by Interpol for sex crimes littering his website with seductive photos of himself? Given what we know about Assange so far, the short answer is self-indulgence. This is a man who allows no room for dissent in his organization; who will walk out of an interview at the drop of a hat and spend the day tweeting catty things at the Pentagon like a Kardashian. There is no stooping too low when egos are concerned– at the very least, Assange has yet to hit the bottom of his vanity. Yet the shock is not that Assange would feel comfortable enough to do this, but that the media is mostly letting him get away with it, too distracted with the details of his actual day job (leaking confidential files) to ridicule him for something few other media figures would have survived.

In some ways, it has worked. After repeated bashings for looking like a Bond villain back in the “Collateral Murder” days, Assange cut and dyed his hair (moving eulogy to the silver mane here) and started wearing suits for a change. The very least it got him was his very own fanpage, where giddy fangirls (and boys) fawn over him and lament they were not the objects of his rape charges (really). Degrading, perhaps, but it’s all a walking PR disaster the size of former BP CEO Tony Hayward can do to keep the public in his favor. Those who perceive a gender bias in the way media figures must present themselves should take some solace in the fact that sex is now a tool for both genders– or, at the very least, Assange is desperately trying to make that so. In the aforementioned Megyn Kelly case, those who supported her choice to look sexy in a skimpy dress without a hint of irony found it empowering. Somehow, Assange’s version of a skimpy outfit and sexy look devoid of irony– engenders more pause. The personalities and histories, of course, are different, whether there is something equally empowering or degrading about a man taking to what has traditionally been a woman’s battlefield to save his image has now become a matter of contention where, previously, the physical exploitation of a male figure was only possible for the sake of comedy.

Had it been any other website proprietor, it would have been ridiculous enough– imagine a new Drudge Report with Matt Drudge‘s bedroom eyes baring down from above, or Big Government with Andrew Breitbart pinups all over the place, or a Daily Caller with something like this wallpapered everywhere. Because these are all men, it would be quite funny; one suspects Arianna Huffington would not get away with being “funny,” but rather would be accused in a rainbow of euphemisms of prostituting her image for money. That Julian Assange is now doing the same– when he faces an international sex crime charge, no less– is a gutsy, bizarre, disarming, insane move worthy of universal mockery– or universal recognition.

Citing a nastiness index, Kurtz bluntly states that while the media once reported the partisan spats, they now find themselves much more involved, often being targets of attacks. And sometimes even making them. Exhibit A…and B…and C…and well, you get the point:

In just the last few weeks, Salon Editor in Chief Joan Walsh and CNBC contributor Howard Dean have accused Fox News of racism; conservative crusader Andrew Breitbart has delighted in pushing a maliciously edited video smearing Shirley Sherrod and refused to apologize; Fox hosts have denounced mainstream organizations as Obama lap dogs for downplaying a case involving the New Black Panther Party; e-mails from an off-the-record discussion group showed one liberal pundit wishing for Rush Limbaugh‘s death and another suggesting that conservatives such as Fred Barnes be tarred as racist; Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings was accused of betraying journalistic ethics with the story that torpedoed Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and Hastings’s critics were ripped as lackeys of the military establishment.

Kurtz states the bottom line quite well: it’s “journalism as a blood sport, performed for the masses.” The polarization in politics has without a doubt bled into a polarization in the media. There seems to be a constant need to vilify someone, whether it’s a news organization, media personality, politician or the BP/Goldman Sachs-of-the-moment.

More significantly, politics and journalism are increasingly intertwined:

The rise of highly opinionated hosts at Fox and MSNBC helped fuel the trend, as has the invasion of pols-turned-pundits — Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, James Carville, Eliot Spitzer — who have blurred the distinction between us (the journalists) and them (those we cover).

There is a reason why editorial and columns get only a few pages in newspapers. But on television, opinion thrives — and when facts are ignored in the crossfire, viewers are left with skewed perceptions of current events.

“Responsible people in power and in the mainstream media are only beginning to grapple with this new environment — in which facts hardly matter except as they can be used as weapon or shield in a nonstop ideological war,” Politico editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei write in a provocative essay.

But isn’t journalism, first and foremost — whether it’s straight news or an editorial — supposed to sit on a foundation of facts? The media now find themselves in a strange position, where they sometimes enable the “deterioration of political discourse,” but are also sometimes a target.

New York Times columnist David Brooks put it this way on “Meet the Press”: “A different sort of media, squabble culture, has come up on the left and the right. . . . They build audience by destroying other people.”

And sometimes they destroy themselves.

That last part refers to cases like Helen Thomas‘ remarks on Israel and Dave Weigel‘s off-the-record JournoList emails. Kurtz goes on to point out how recent incidents like the Shirley Sherrod debacle only exemplify how toxic the atmosphere has become.

It is towards the end that Kurtz makes an especially important point:

The news business, aloof from criticism for far too long, should absolutely be held accountable. These days, though, the constant swirl of accusations, the charges of bias and personal perfidy, have tarred even those who are working hard to be fair.

…Instead, the toxic atmosphere that many media outlets tolerate, and sometimes foster, is slowly poisoning the discourse, for us and, yes, for you.

As necessary as accountability is, it often seems to be becoming increasingly rare. In the fight for ratings and higher numbers, it’s easier to just keep playing the game. Frankly, it works. People love sensationalism. But there’s also danger in having such a polarized media climate. Consumers can easily pick and choose their news, getting a very one-sided, incomplete — and often inaccurate — picture of what’s happening in the world around them. The gladiator blood bath between opposing sides of the media may benefit ratings and web hits, but it isn’t helping the audience. Journalism is intended to inform citizens and serve as an antidote to ignorance. So, the next time we talk about the woes of ignorance in a democratic society, we should realize we may have a larger problem to deal with.

In The Nation, Eric Alterman wrote a piece arguing that a progressive presidency, at least for now, is not possible in this country. In doing so, he immediately states — as if fact — that most people who call themselves progressives would be underwhelmed by Obama:

Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment.

Alterman devotes his lengthy piece to what he says is the reason progressive leaders cannot have their way in America: structural limitations.

Face it, the system is rigged, and it’s rigged against us. Sure, presidents can pretty easily pass tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful corporations. They can start whatever wars they wish and wiretap whomever they want without warrants. They can order the torture of terrorist suspects, lie about it and see that their intelligence services destroy the evidence. But what they cannot do, even with supermajorities in both houses of Congress behind them, is pass the kind of transformative progressive legislation that Barack Obama promised in his 2008 presidential campaign.

While Alterman’s argument lays out how our political structure prevents progressive legislation, a piece in Politico uses the argument to support “why Obama wins by losing.” In it, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei discuss how despite his achievements, Obama is widely perceived as “flirting with a failed presidency”:

You can argue over whether Obama’s achievements are good or bad on the merits. But, especially after Thursday’s vote, you can’t argue that Obama is not getting things done.

The problem is that he and his West Wing turn out to be not especially good at politics or communications — in other words, largely ineffective at the very things on which their campaign reputation was built. And the promises he made in two years of campaigning turn out to be much less appealing as actual policies.

The Politico piece does have a good premise, but the Huffington Post’s Jason Linkins rightly points out faults — including the issue that most of the story is based entirely on anonymous sources, with authors simply stating “interviews with officials in the administration and on Capitol Hill, and with Democratic operatives around town.”

Furthermore, Linkins takes issue with how the Politico writers downplayed unemployment. Linkins’ makes a sound critique, because the numbers prove (as they have for years) that unemployment numbers are directly correlated to a president’s approval ratings.

These above mentioned pieces are legitimate examples of political analysis. Yet the broader picture seems to show an increasing interest in how progressives specifically might assess Obama’s presidency. Perhaps this is because we already know how conservatives feel (and it’s not pretty). Perhaps it is because we’re sure to hear more and more about how independents feel as November edges closer.

Yet, at least right now, the focus on progressives seems a bit disproportionate. What kind of effect does this kind of semi-polarizing coverage have on the country’s dramatically polarized political landscape? It would be naive to think the media does not influence the public — and while these individual publications may not be reaching everyone, the big picture does. In an ideal world, we would focus more on policy and ideas. In the real world, most things seem to be defined by political parties.

Common knowledge on the right would have it that terrorists caught abroad just spend their days sunbathing in Gitmo; on the left, they’re being waterboarded most of the time. The reality of it, according to the Times, is that many terror suspects find themselves passing through the legal system quite efficiently so as to maximize their value as purveyors of intelligence. “Over the last two years,” the Times explains, “about one-third of the international terrorism convictions around the nation, and nearly all of those involving the post-9/11 activities of core operatives of Al Qaeda, were won by the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn.” Knox supervised all of these cases, and the Times has some fascinating articles on how Knox’s treatment of the operatives as civil rather than war criminals has proven fruitful:

“Bryant Neal Vinas, 27, a convert to Islam, born in New York to an Argentine father and a Bolivian mother and raised and radicalized on Long Island, had already begun cooperating with the F.B.I. and prosecutors, court records show.

His early statements led almost immediately to successful drone strikes in the tribal areas, several officials have said, and he later became one of the government’s most prized intelligence assets on Al Qaeda’s operations and leadership. His information, the officials said, was shared with and used by the United States military, and by intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the United States and its allies.”

And there is more evidence that terrorists under the American judicial system are more valuable and are dealt with in a swifter manner than the alternative. The successes of this domestic prosecution of terrorists is screaming for a major headline; it flies in the face of conservative conventional wisdom that treating terrorists as war criminals and sentencing them even more quickly would be more successful. So it’s no surprise that Knox hasn’t landed himself a prime spot on Hannity or an extensive profile in the National Review, if only in a “the man does a good job, but we can do better” type of column.

More interesting is the fact that pundits on the left, in whose favor it would be to point out the successes of the Obama administration in prosecuting terror suspects, has been equally silent, opting instead to defend the President on his domestic policies (health care, the economy, etc). One complication with Knox is that, despite in practice forwarding an opinion more commonly found among liberals as to how terrorists should be dealt with, he’s a New York Times-certified “traditional law-and-order Republican.” He may be proving a mutually beneficial point for both sides, as Americans, but that’s not how the punditry game works. Political coverage is a scoring game, but it isn’t soccer; you can’t score an own-goal against your own side (just ask David Frum).

After a significant amount of time in the shadows, it’s good to see the story finally surface, even if presented in a format that will convince very few partisans– the loudest in the news/political sphere– to rethink their opinions on either side. But seeing Knox’s work and that of his colleagues front-and-center in the cable news is a long shot, as is any evidence to support a contrary opinion– the topic is simply, like most of the War on Terror, too important in too non-partisan a way to grab attention on either side.

[photo credit NYT]