It's the Money.. Stupid

Glenn Greenwald has spent the past week or so ruining Joe Klein's career. Klein had written a column in Time Magazine which falsely described a Democratic FISA bill, and accused Democrats of coddling terrorists at the expense of Americans.

Of course, the entire premise of the column was a complete lie, fed to Klein by anonymous Republican "sources". Greenwald goes on to make the point;

This episode also highlights one of the most corrupt and destructive journalistic practices -- namely, the fact that establishment media outlets eagerly protect their sources even when those sources feed them outright lies in order to manipulate them into printing a false story. In theory, journalists are not supposed to protect the identity of sources who do that, but they virtually always do.

It would be worthwhile to ask major publication editors why they do that, but the answer is simple.. and they will never admit to it. It's the money.

Publishing is not a non-profit. Therefore, they need to sell their publications. To do that, they need sources to feed them information. If a reporter or columnist were to reveal the identity of a source who lied to him, that reporter would have a hard time getting information from any sources... therefore, the reporter would be useless to the publication, and the publication would be less competitive in the publishing world..

Sooo.. our media is routinely lied to by political operatives who know this.. and lie with impunity and anonymity. These politicos consider it their job to lie to sway public opinion.

In the end.. every-day Americans pay for these publications - essentially creating the atmosphere where what they are paying for is to be lied to.

We need a new media model.. where the "MSM" is forced to stop these willfully dishonest practices because of market pressures from internet based reporting.