A hypothetical question about "The Open Sewer Of Misinformation"

I try to Tivo most of the Sunday a.m. political talk shows.
This doesn't help my blood pressure.
One particular exchange, supposedly about throwing Greenery Czar Van Jones overboard, had me throwing stuff at the TV with more force than usual. I was almost relieved when I discovered that most of the Blogosphere was already posting about it.
I LOVE me some YouTube....



Tom Brokaw and Thomas (No More Huge Houses - Except Mine) Friedman are shown here lamenting that the internet is an open sewer of misinformation. They mourn because nothing is vetted any more. They tear their garments and smear black ashes on their foreheads because no one can reign in the internet.
They did just about everything but discuss why the MSM ignored the unfolding Van Jones debacle until the White House told Jones to volunteer to depart.
Have they ever, ever, ever considered that the Mainstream Media might owe some of its decline to the perception that they are in the tank for Big Gubmint?

Here are some other links on this sad decline, courtesy of Gateway Pundit:

Now, that (the video) is good comedy!
What makes it even more hysterical is that they all take themselves so seriously.
Too much.

The New York Times will publish their first print report on the Van Jones scandal tomorrow morning... more than 36 hours after (Jones) left the White House.
They refused to report on the story until the Mumia Abu Jamal-supporting Truther was long, long gone.
Good work, guys.

Related... Mark Hemingway has more thoughts at The Corner:

While Glenn Beck and others in the conservative commentariat had been shining a light on Jones' radical past for a while, the revelations that finally sunk Jones were broken by Gateway Pundit and other bloggers. Not that long ago, the idea that a guy Googling in the basement would be capable of bringing down a White House staffer would have been a story in and of itself. I suppose some might think this sort of thing is old hat five years after Rathergate, but I also suspect that this aspect of the story will be largely ignored because it makes the MSM look very, very bad.

Actually, I was Googling upstairs at the time.

More... Jonah Goldberg added this on today's "Meet the Press" discussion, via HotAir:

One of Friedman's key take-aways from this whole affair is that too many people will self-censor themselves so they can get government jobs. What a tragedy that fewer people will support cop-killers and anti-American conspiracy groups because of poor Van Jones chilling effect on the culture.

Still More... Kausfiles points to this from Noah Silverman:

Readers of the print edition of The New York Times will never have heard of the presidential appointee so controversial the President had to dump him. Is this a milestone in the decline of the NYT?

Some of you are reading this, and asking yourselves "Who is Van Jones, and why does he matter?"
Well, ask yourself another question. Are you going to find out by going to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, or The New York Times?
Or are you going to dive into the "open sewer of misinformation" and do a Google search?