They Think You're Stupid

This probably explains how Obama got elected. I wonder if these are the same 42 million who can't figure out how to get health insurance?

One reason for the decline of newspaper circulation is that 42 million Americans are illiterate and roughly 50 million more are semi-literate, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Christopher Hedges says. What’s more, he adds, 80 percent of U.S. households last year did not buy a book.

Now besides obviously just pulling statistics out of his butt, he is using this as an argument to explain why newspaper subscriptions and readership are reaching all time lows, but who am I to argue with a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist? If 80% of U.S. households didn't buy a book last year it is kind of hard to explain how so many conservative writers manage to stay on top the best sellers list or what has propelled writers such a J K Rowling of Harry Potter fame or Dan Brown of the Da Vinci Code to become household names. Maybe it is just liberals who don't buy books, which based on how well Nancy Pelosi's book did may be true.

The article then throws out a little anecdotal evidence like this:

Phillips went on to say that at the Media Reform Conference held in Minneapolis in June, 2008, a survey of 376 persons selected at random were asked their views about media today. “Ninety-nine percent agreed with the statement that corporate media has failed to keep the American people informed on important issues facing the nation. We get almost unanimous agreement on that point.”

99% huh? So I wonder who the one person was who felt they were being well served by the news media? What they failed to state was the reason most people feel that "corporate" media fails to inform us. Could it just be the quality of the reporting? When the latest Jon and Kate update trumps reporting on the peccadilloes of elected officials, when the hot item for weeks is the death of Michael Jackson rather then the nuclear ambitions of Iran, most people do feel like the media are out of touch.

The Phillips mentioned above is Peter Phillips, whom the writer of this article states is the Director of Project Censored. One problem with that. If you visit their web site and click the ABOUT tab it shows the director as being Benjamin Frymer.

Sometimes it is just too easy. Oh and one other thing about Project Censored, every year "Project Censored reviews the story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources and national significance. The university community selects 25 stories to submit to the Project Censored panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. Current or previous national judges include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally, Frances Moore Lappe, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace and Howard Zinn."

One thing missing off of that list of criteria is fact checking, which given the inaccuracies in this article are not a priority.

I'm sure if I bothered to research the other names on that list besides the ones I bolded I would find a similar breed of far left liberals. In case you doubt they are a far left group just look at their list of Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009.