Writer Michael Massing sums up several currents of influence on the U.S. mainstream media in The End of News? a two-part essay in the New York Review of Books (H/T to Zerby).

Part One deals with the effects of a right-wing attack-dog media, the Bush administration's own efforts to control the news (Armstrong Williams, Kenneth Tomlinson at PBS), the growth of conservative media criticism, and the economic pressures on the MSM.

Here's the final paragraph:

The central question, in light of these difficulties, is how the press will respond. The environment in which the press works is often inhospitable, but it's precisely in times of crisis and upheaval that some of the best journalism gets done. Unfortunately, a look at the press's recent performance —including that of our leading newspapers—is not encouraging. As I will try to show in a subsequent article, news organizations, rather than push back against the forces confronting them, have too often retreated andacquiesced.

Which brings us to Part Two.

This essay deals with the press's own failings, which is why Massing terms it "the enemy within."

Here, I will concentrate on the press's internal problems—not on its many ethical and professional lapses, which have been extensively discussed elsewhere, but rather on the structural problems that keep the press from fulfilling its responsibilities to serve as a witness to injustice and a watchdog over the powerful. To some extent, these problems consist of professional practices and proclivities that inhibit reporting —a reliance on "access," an excessive striving for "balance," an uncritical fascination with celebrities. Equally important is the increasing isolation of much of the profession from disadvantaged Americans and the difficulties they face. Finally, and most significantly, there's the political climate in which journalists work. Today's political pressures too often breed in journalists a tendency toward self-censorship, toward shying away from the pursuit of truths that might prove unpopular, whether with official authorities or the public.

Massing raises the issue of the importance some news organizations put on appearing to be fair and balanced ratherthan reporting what the evidence suggests is the truth.

He attacks celebrity worship and the desire of some journos to be one with the real movers and shakers.

Iraq is a major topic for him, consuming about half of part two.

But I found his ending to be quite unsatisfying:

Even more important, though, I believe, are political realities. The abuses that US troops routinely commit in the field, and their responsibility for the deaths of many thousands of innocent Iraqis, are viewed by the American press as too sensitive for most Americans to see or read about. When NBC cameraman Kevin Sites filmed a US soldier fatally shooting a wounded Iraqi man in Fallujah, he was harassed, denounced as an antiwar activist, and sent death threats. Such incidents feed the deep-seated fear that many US journalists have of being accused of being anti-American, of not supporting the troops in the field. These subjects remain off-limits.

Of course, if the situation in Iraq were further to unravel, or if President Bush were to become more unpopular, the boundaries of the acceptable might expand further, and subjects such as these might begin appearing on our front pages. It's regrettable, though, that editors and reporters have to wait for such developments. Of all the internal problems confronting the press, the reluctance to venture into politically sensitive matters, to report disturbing truths that might unsettle and provoke, remains by far the most troubling.

On November 8, I turned on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 to see how the host was doing in his new job. It was Election Day, and I was hoping to find some analysis of the results. Instead, I found Cooper leading a discussion on a new sex survey conducted by Men's Fitness and Shape magazines. I learned that 82 percent of men think they're good or excellent in bed, and that New Yorkers report they have more sex than the residents of any other state. At that moment, New Orleans and Katrina seemed to be in a galaxy far, far away.

Here's the thing: Privately-owned news media organizations require profits to live. They can't totally discount their audiences' wishes. Some Americans prefer good displays of patriotism from their news media rather than good journalism.

Perhaps what is really needed is a compact between audience and news organization that so long as the news organization tells the truth, the audience will reward it with its continued attention.

But for some reason, in virtually no media criticism that I ever see, does the role of the audience ever come under scrutiny.

Wacky, man.