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Friday, March 27, 2009

The MSM and Swimming Naked

There’s a Wall Street saying about what happens to traders who have taken too many chances, when the stock prices ebb: “When the tide goes out,” it’s said, “you see who’s been swimming naked” – what might be called the ultimate consequence of a bear (or bare) market.

By Robert Parry March 28, 2009

But the same lesson may apply when the existing mainstream media fades out to sea. Today, even as many Americans rightfully disdain the MSM, its rapid contraction could inflict even more damage on an already battered American Republic.

That’s because the MSM has been providing information – albeit with many flaws – that has allowed others, including bloggers and independent Web sites like ours, to derive substantial information from working reporters who are sent off to cover a multitude of stories.

When those mainstream reporters dwindle in number amid endless budget cuts, the tide of basic facts will retreat and – metaphorically speaking – we’ll discover which political groupings have been swimming naked, relying too much on the work of the MSM.

The answer today seems clear. The conservatives, right-wingers and Republicans will be as well-covered as some of those bathers in the Victorian Era. The liberals, progressives and Democrats will be left trying to cover up.

The logical result of a fading MSM – combined with a robust right-wing news media and a miniscule progressive one – will be the relative strengthening of conservatives who already possess a vertically integrated media infrastructure for developing and disseminating information, from newspapers, magazines and books to radio, TV and the Internet. Read more at Consortium News