That's not a dig against Robert or Maryam, btw. I know their frustration, because I'm a news junkie, and I know that, if I want accurate, timely information about events that are happening all over the world, the very LAST place I'm going to check is the TV news networks here in the US. If it wasn't for the various news sources on the internet, I'd probably believe that whatever was happening in the lives of some worthless celebrity or on some piss-ant reality show was the most important thing that had happened all week. CNN and its brethren has sucked for at least the last 20 years. Thanks to the net, people are starting to realize that fact. - Steven Perez

Indeed. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

The whole mass media in the US is pretty much a farce, because it is a handful of large corporations that control all news outlets. And since they are large corporations, they are more interested in the bottom line than in independent news gathering. Thank goodness for bloggers, twitterers and social networks ... and Auntie Beeb! - Rene, Pro Button Pusher

TV doesn't allow us to empathize with those who suffer - but online, their voice is raw and unedited. - Ahsan Ali

Yep, and don't forget NPR and the BBC...we do have alternative "mass media" sources out there. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

I always laugh whenever my friends mock the BBC. The mockery usually stops when I ask them if they've heard about this thing happening over here in the US or that thing happening just over the border in Mexico, all of which I heard from the Beeb. And then I openly mock them whenever they start telling me what they heard from the TODAY show. - Steven Perez from IM

Auntie Beeb is one of the most reliable news sources in the world, if not the most reliable! - Rene, Pro Button Pusher

And it's worth noting that NPR gets a great deal of its international news items from ... wait for it ... the BBC. - Steven Perez from IM

Ok, y'all are going to laugh at me, but for a moment I thought you were referring to Susan Beebe ! LOL - Ahsan Ali

Yep, Steven. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

And the duplicity of the media is amazing. Let some idiot Congresscritter start railing about how Iran needs to be bombed, and CNN and its ilk won't shut up about it. But riots in the streets after an election? NOT. A. PEEP. - Steven Perez

I contribute to my local NPR station w/ a note saying that I'm doing it for the BBC feed. - Ayşe E.

Srsly, Steven! I mean, how can it be a surprise that our TV nooze failed us in this moment after regularly failing us—at least since the Reagan admin upended the Fairness Doctrine—here at home in the most important moments of our own domestic affairs? Stolen elections, anyone? Aiding and abetting lying us into a war? If any integrity and fidelity to fact existed in mainstream news media, that buffoon w. would've been laughed off the podium in 1999. How fact-averse do you have to be to take that guy at all seriously as a person w/ the capacity to run a country? - Ayşe E.

Hmmm...I guess that since I don't have a tv, I missed the tv network FAIL this time. Interesting.... - Katy S

That's true, Katy. But, hey, at least we know all about David Letterman's Palin joke, right? - Steven Perez

I got a new motto for CNN - "CNN: 24 HOUR NEWS COVERAGE ... except on the weekends. Hey' c'mon, man, I'm having a BBQ this weekend!" - Steven Perez

i like that quote: 'noone cares about the flood waters until they're [sic] come up on your doorstep' - docrivs

Well, the Letterman bit would have made news around here, anyway. I live in Indiana - we keep track of our fellow hoosiers. - Katy S