It has been awhile since I last felt the need to write an article. The last discussed Armstrong Williams getting paid off by the Department of Education. As expected, not that big of a story, it’s over and done. Well, kids, here is another one for you.

News broke via the blogs (especially AmericaBlog) that a White House reporter from right-wing “news” site Talon News was not really all he said he was. Well, for one, a right-wing pundit asking simpleass questions of the right-wing administration…well, that’s not so bad. You come to expect it from the territory. His cushy questions and strong consideration of the Democrats play to the administration’s message and gives them a chance to take a moment and have their way with the media.

However, that, my friends, is not all. Apparently, he also was using an alias. “Jeff Gannon” is actually James Guckert. Okay, that also does not have that much pizzazz.

Oh, wait, there is more. Guckert owns or is part of several gay and gay prostitute websites, goes by the name “Bulldog,” and apparently, is 8+ inches cut. Well…wow.

Not about the penis size, though kudos, James. What bothers me, and what bothers most people out there, is that this kind of thing SHOULD have been on CNN, our “liberal” news. Or MSNBC. Hell, I know FOX wouldn’t say anything, but CBS should have. I’ve been told they are quite the liberal commies.

However, the story had to be broken by the blogs. Yes, ladies and gents, the blogs are the only ones who actually try to investigate the news. This is what the current climate has produced. Three 24 hour news networks, who would rather talk about the same thing than actually really report on the news, and there is nowhere else for those who want truth in this world to find it than on the internet.

It amazes me why anyone even watches TV news anymore. You are given a choice between CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News. All three are owned by huge multi-national corporations. AOL Time/Warner has an incredible amount of media locked up (along with syndication rights to Sex and the City apparently) while MSNBC is owned ultimately by GE with connections to Microsoft. FOX News is of course headed by Rupert Murdoch, an Aussie right-winger who also owned the Dodgers at one point. By the way, CBS is owned by Viacom. The CEO of Viacom is Sumner Redstone and six weeks before the 2004 election, he endorsed George W. Bush on behalf of Viacom. Yet, whenever Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or anyone on these forums I often visit start complaining about the media, CBS takes center stage.

So, this is the nature of the news? We are given nothing but corporate sponsored drivel or Murdoch’s ideology. Thank God for the bloggers, a new way of getting the news. Granted, it is not all great. Blogs generally have problems with sources, with credibility, and with fact checking. It is like the regular news, just a bit more problematic. But at least they are willing to report on things that need to be reported on.

I was told that the World Wide Web would get me closer to the Knowledge Store than ever before. No longer would I have to go to the library or read the newspaper or watch TV. I could find out literally anything with a search. I could wade through long articles with a Find tool. I could find formulas and research methods to help me.

I did not know, however, that I would need to rely on the “internets” for the real news. We have become a nation controlled by corporations. They’ve decided what we will hear, what we will find interesting, and what we will follow. We are now no longer independent of the news because the news is no longer independent of the government. For the longest time, it was like that, too, helped by Presidents cracking down on freedom (even Democrat Woodrow Wilson). It helped build a prestige of the great man who was the President. A better man. A Godly man. But the JFK assassination, struggle for civil rights, the war in Vietnam, and so on helped to tear down that image. We finally were able to see our government officials as they really were. Men and women doing a job and because we are hiring them, we damn sure should be able to check up on their job.

But as Bush and Co. reminds us about everything, 9/11 changed a lot. Not just that, but the 2000 election when the media became bubbling buffoons before our eyes. For nine months, George W. Bush was as useless as a Herbert Hoover. He did nothing, helped nothing, and made no decisions. His stem cell research decision in August of ’01 was that of a man without the backbone to actually take a stance. If you don’t understand that, look at the vast majority of current Democrats.

And then, 9/11. Suddenly, despite a good number of people wanting to ask the President how he could let something like 9/11 happened, the media became lapdogs. When Bush said Afghanistan, the media said when and sought the encyclopedia to learn a bit about our new enemies. When Bush said Iraq, even then, the media seemed to take a back seat, afraid of asking anything remotely close to a tough question. Instead, let’s go to war. It’ll be cool. We’ll shoot footage so close you can hear the children crying.

Even as Iraq began to turn, most in the media stayed in the background, willing to let the administration’s talking points dictate the news. I can’t hate on Talon News so much because they literally still do that. They got their cue from the way the “real” news was reporting.

Now…maybe, finally, the news can grow a set and actually do something about this administration than can get away with anything. But their lack of political courage brought on a need for the blog. We needed Atrios, Kos, AmericaBlog, and so forth. We needed them like the conservatives needed talk radio. So for once, the questions that liberals needed answered would finally get asked. Why were we lied to? Who’s next? And is there any real hope out there in this world?

Bush and Co. were stupid. They didn’t need to pay off the media or find the little homo for their White House reporting. The current media would have gladly done it for free.