"What is the role of a free and independent press in a democratic society? Is it to be a passive conduit responsible only for the delivery of information between a government and its people? Is it to aggressively print allegation and rumor independent of accuracy or fairness? Is it to show boobies? No. The role of a free press is to be the people's eyes and ears, providing not just information but access, insight and, most importantly, context."
— From America (The Book) by The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.
It is, one hopes, a positive sign that a book of media and political criticism ends up as book of the year by Publishers Weekly.
It is, however, not a good thing that it took a fake news show on a comedy network to give Americans the real deal on their country.
At least 2004 was an improvement on 2003. This year, some of the mainstream media, at least some of the time, stepped out of the pro-war, pro-George W. Bush conga line and stopped beating the war drums.
The New York Times copped to having swallowed the administration hook, line and clunker about weapons of mass destruction. The New Yorker and CBS showed the extent of American war crimes at Abu Ghraib prison. The networks gave big play to Kevin Sites's video of an American marine shooting an unarmed Iraqi in a mosque. Another embedded journalist encouraged a National Guardsman this month to ask Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the lack of armoured Humvees — probably saving many American troops and contributing to the almost-certain demise of Rumsfeld's long political run.
But it wasn't all good.
In May, the Walt Disney Company refused to distribute Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which ended up breaking box-office records. CEO Michael Eisner balked because he didn't want Disney to be involved with a "a politically oriented film during an election year." Yet Disney gives platforms to blatant Bush partisans such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, all responsible for broadcasting right-wing propaganda.
CBS's Dan Rather capped a mostly distinguished career by using questionable documents to question Bush's questionable National Guard service during Vietnam. That resulted in the network shelving another investigation of far more troublesome documents, the forged Niger papers that the White House used to make its "case" for disarming Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, no other major news outlet took on the fact that there were great big gaping holes in Bush's service flight logs — which have yet to be made public. Oh, but the media did go to town on Democratic contender John Kerry's combat record. It seemed that the entire month of August there was nothing else worth probing other than whether the decorated veteran bled red-white-and-blue enough in Vietnam.
The next month, when Kitty Kelley's 733-page The Family: The Real Story Of The Bush Dynasty was published, it was quickly discounted because the media focus was on a few pages relating how George W. had snorted coke at Camp David during his father's presidency. That despite how Bush has never denied using drugs. As a result, the rest of this meticulously researched book was ignored, including its damning sections on dubious Bush family connections, shady business deals and a long history of racism.
But then, the media are notorious for their selectivity.
Consider the battle to find out what that bulge on Bush's back was during the presidential debates. Tens of millions of people saw it. But the press corps didn't press the White House for answers.
Oh, but when Janet Jackson showed the bulge on her front, it was news all year.
Another story the media ignored was the blatantly hateful comments uttered on MSNBC's Imus In The Morning last month. On the day after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died, Don Imus allowed his sportscaster and producer to joke about killing Palestinians.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) made headlines when it refused to renew the licence for Quebec city radio station CHOI, after hosts there defiantly made offensive jokes about everything from Africans to gas chambers.
While the CRTC gave the pro-Bush Fox News Network the green light to invade Canada, it put up so many roadblocks against Al Jazeera, the most-watched news network in the Muslim world, that the channel will never be legally distributed here.
Also running afoul of the law — or at least of a judge — was the Hamilton Spectator's Ken Peters, who faced contempt of court charges for refusing to reveal a source.
Other Canadian reporters in the news, and not for the right reasons, included Stevie Cameron, who stands accused of being an RCMP informant in the endless Airbus scandal.
The last thing journalism needed was another punch to its credibility. This month, a Gallup poll in the U.S. yet again revealed that less than 25 per cent of respondents rate newspaper reporters very high or high for honesty. TV journalists fared slightly better.
According to pollster Frank Newport, "Americans are suspicious of the news media."
You figure?
As America (The Book) points out, the media have never been freer — and "the status never quo-er."