[MD] Global Warming: Science or Politics?

[Case]

[Platt]
MSNBC a credible source? Ha, ha, ha, ha. As for rest, the questions remain.
I learned them from you. Your citing the study as if that were the holy writ
speaks volumes about the positions you hold when convenient. When not
convenient, you ignore your own "scientific" criteria.

[Case]
I did not cite the article Arlo did. But your disparagement of MSNBC does
bring to mind some serious issues. 

When newspaper reports of the Watergate break-in brought to light the
criminal activities of the Nixon administration, politicians saw the real
consequences of a free press. An all out assault was launched on the free
press from two directions. One was the cynical proclamation of bias in the
media. Issuing forth from the right this was just one of a series of
hypocritical attacks on institutions that had helped make America great. I
have mentioned at length the attacks on government and public service. But
this one is even more cynical. 

The press was a free institution. Walter Cronkite was almost universally
regarded as the most trustworthy man in the country. Journalists subscribed
to and were held accountable to a code of professional ethics. This was not
something they did in secret. Ethics were on the front burner at staff
meeting of every daily paper in the country every single day. The goal of
the local paper was "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable"

But the attack went beyond simply slander and lies. The cornerstone of a
free press is local ownership, local investment in the local press. At the
time of Watergate, most cities had at least two newspapers and the
competition between them was fierce. Since Watergate there has been a
loosening of restrictions on who can own the media both print and
electronic. Today there are not more than a handful of communities with two
newspapers. 

It is true that most people get their news from the TV but there the story
is even bleaker. While small town presses were being gobbled up by large
conglomerates, big business was in a lobbying frenzy. They pushed through
changes in frequency licensing laws so that media owners could acquire more
and more media. As a result local ownership of news media in any form is all
but dead. 

This concentration of media ownership, which has been as enthusiastically
supported by democrats as well as republican, is at least in my mind one of
the single biggest threats to liberty that we face as a nation.