NYT Late To The Party - Again

Some pretty decent analysis from Numerian at The Agonist, on the main reason our 4th estate is in the middle of an Epic FAIL.

As an ex-subscriber to The New York Times, I too have been outraged by such stories, but not because I read them in the paper of record, which is not simply very late to the game of reporting on this phenomenon - it is too late. I’ve been outraged by these stories because I have been reading about this for years on internet blogs. Some of the most persistent reporters and analysts who write about this problem include Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, Yves Smith at the Naked Capitalist blog, and Karl Denninger at the Market Ticker blog. All three of these writers have no doubt lost some readers over the years because they write about these stories over and over, and manage to maintain a sustained fury over the debasement of the rule of law that is evidenced by the way the big banks operate, and the inability or refusal of the government to do much about it.
These are the sort of people who have been criticized for years by The New York Times for sloppy reporting because they don’t have to live by the strict journalistic standards that are upheld every day by the mainstream media.

Whether or not this is true – and for the most part these writers have been careful about ensuring that the facts they present are verified – it is definitely the case that mainstream media reporters and analysts have not taken the angry, vituperative, and in some cases vulgar tone that bloggers take when talking about the collapse of the rule of law.

Therein lies a problem, and it is one that the mainstream media is only now beginning to comprehend. The undermining of the US Constitution and the laws as passed by Congress, and the refusal by government to investigate or prosecute these violations, which are now rife, represent some of the most serious challenges imaginable to a democracy based on a republican form of government. Anyone who takes their responsibilities as a citizen of the US seriously should be outraged by these circumstances.

Maybe we're starting to see some signs of revolt from inside the closed-loop crony-driven system which has tied Business, Government and Press together into a neat little bundle. We need that rebellion because we've allowed our little experiment in self government to slip into the oldest game in the world - ie: once everybody's guilty, nobody can be held responsible.  We have to figure out how to split it all up again, and put clearly discernible dividers back into place.  Balance has gone out of the system and must be reestablished.