Originally posted Sat, 02/02/2008 - 13:27 - standingup

When Art and Reality collide ...
what wreckage will be left in its wake?

Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, a World War II veteran, and recipient of the Purple Heart, penned a movie script that has yet to its full impact.

That 1976 Movie: Network

at the time, it seemed more Satire, than Truth.

There are only two houses sporting presidential candidate lawnsigns in this small town of about 6000 residents.

Both signs are for Ron Paul.

One might assume that such tiny anecdotal evidence suggests a wide divide in the support for Paul and the other candidates -- with nary a lawnsign proclaiming support for any of the others, but you would be forgiven for not coming to that conclusion, especially if you made your assessment based on coverage in the main street media or as more and more people refer to it -- the corporate media.

The results from Iowa show Paul garnered 10% of the vote and came in fifth on the Republican side. But as Bill Moyers indicated in his interviews with Kathleen Jamieson (Director of the Anneberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania Anneberg School for Communication), Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, you would not be faulted for thinking that Paul and Kucinich had dropped out of the race for their respective parties' nominations.

Paul Steiger, a 41 year newspaper veteran, packs his boxes at The Wall Street Journal and reflects on what is happening to the "news" Read All About It.

Many of us knocking around the ePluribus Media community for the past three years have been reflecting (in countless essays and articles) on how online organizations, like our own, impact news, news gathering, research, investigation and the big media organizations themselves. Just a couple of days ago, I posted some preliminary thoughts about The New London Day -- the "non-profit," independent newspaper I have been reading about recently.

It was startling then, to open today's weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal and see what Steiger suggests below the fold.