Well, actually, it's always worth a read, but today's (The Globe and Mail, if you don't know) is media-specific.

In commenting on the murder of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Martin doesn't spare the media in Canada and the U.S. from criticism.

In more advanced democracies such as our own, the idea of shooting the messenger is thankfully not accorded such literal interpretation. But we should guard against any temptation to be smug. While freedom of the press isn't gravely imperilled, the threats mount.

The heady era of journalism that saw the counterculture impulse hold sway is gone, replaced by infotainment, tabloidization, post-9/11 patriotism and corporate concentration.

While he thinks Canada's media hasn't moved as far as to "patriot journalism" (Martin said Fox News resembles the Pravda of Leonid Brezhnev's era), he wondered if any CanWest journalist would feel comfortable being critical of Israel during the recent conflict with Hezbollah, given the leanings of the proprietors.

Martin found comfort in the recent book State of Denial, by veteran U.S. journalist Bob Woodward. He thinks Woodward got his dander up after feeling duped by the Bushies.

One would like to think that reporters can look propaganda in the eye for only so long before the Edward R. Murrows are unleashed and journalism becomes what it was meant to be and what Anna Politkovskaya was trying to make it: An antidote to every falsehood.