In "Dog Bites Man" News, the Press Sucks

On page 4 of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat yesterday was a Los Angeles Times article about a Sacramento Bee columnist who resigned over questions that have arisen over the veracity of her work. There was an editorial in the local section, as well. Both pieces alluded to other similar cases, involving plagiarism or questionable sources, such as Tom Squitieri, Al Levine, and Eric Slater.

There was the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth about how the public no longer trusts or respects newspapers or journalists and they'll have to work harder to be trustworthy. Yes, do that.

Meanwhile, on page A15, the PD, a "New York Times Regional Newspaper," finally got around, 12 days after it initially showed up in the European press and on the internets, to mentioning in a news story the Downing Street Memo, which discusses how in July 2002 the Bush Administration had already decided to go to war against Iraq and now had to fix "the intelligence and facts" around the policy. Although this had been suspected by many on the left for a couple of years now, the memo was the "smoking gun."

Is it possible that the public no longer respects the press because the people running the news media have no conception anymore about what's important?