Helen Thomas was gallant, even heroic, in forcing the case for women in journalism. But she was also, in what was then the era of objectivity as a professional objective, a subversive precursor of the prejudicial slant in reporting that has come to characterize the worst in the shrill polemicists in the blogosphere and cable news.

Who can afford investigative reporters? Along with the other costly paragons of journalistic excellence, they cost money — which most media organizations no longer seem to have. But if investigative journalism is a public good, shouldn’t, then, the public look to supporting it? LSU J-school dean John Maxwell Hamilton, author of Journalism’s Roving Eye, thinks so. “Like parks, soup kitchens, local opera, and educational institutions, high-quality media rarely pays for itself.”

Just as great men stand on the shoulders of giants, so too is history built on what came before. This now-elapsing decade — The Aughts, or whatever you want to call them — has been a decade of change not only compared to the decades before it, but because of them. Perhaps that’s why now, more than ever, it’s important to remember how we got here.

What troubles me the most about Glenn Beck is how he is slopping over into the new journalism. For those who are troubled over the lack of judgment, filters, and discipline in the handling of the new spontaneous news flows, his careless call-outs to his flock for dirt on enemies represents a new reach into chaos for the profession.

The giant  rear-view mirror held up by Walter Cronkite’s death, seen through the fog of adulation and nostalgia for historic feats of journalism,  brings into focus the essence of his importance:  it was the trust he inspired — by dint of professional  skills, personal accessibility and exposure as the  first  designated anchor  for the new [...]

While the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment has never been successfully challenged politically, it is now being challenged economically: as a practical matter, the press is not so free. So, how to pay for the vital probings on behalf of the entire polity, in this time of forced deprivation?

For the media business — in turmoil  as it tries to figure out what it should be doing and how it should be doing it — events along the emotionally -conflicted career path of Robert McNamara give us a whole course curriculum of case studies and  topics for debate. Here are just a few – [...]