The "Free" Press?

Atrios points us to New York Times OP-Ed columnist Paul Krugman's latest. Unfortunately, the column is only available to those who pay the subscription fpr TimesSelect. We clioked the link to "Start your 14-day free trial to TimesSelect now" and found one needs to enter a credit card number for this "free" trial. The card won't be charged for 14 days, but one must cancel the subscription by then or the Times will automatically charge one's card.

But that little rant isn't really what this post is about.

First, thanks to Atrios, here's the bit from Krugman:

Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Bush administration continues to be remarkably successful at rewriting history. For example, Mr. Bush has repeatedly suggested that the United States had to invade Iraq because Saddam wouldn’t let U.N. inspectors in. His most recent statement to that effect was only a few weeks ago. And he gets away with it. If there have been reports by major news organizations pointing out that that’s not at all what happened, I’ve missed them.

It’s all very Orwellian, of course. But when Orwell wrote of “a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past,” he was thinking of totalitarian states. Who would have imagined that history would prove so easy to rewrite in a democratic nation with a free press?

We've noticed for some time the news media's failure to correct misinformation. Which leads us to believe there is no such thing as a "free" press in an America that has become a Corporate State.

The media are bought and paid for. In the Corporate State, corporate media are the State Media.

As long as otherwise intelligent folks refuse to admit the evidence of their senses, this will not change. Perhaps it can never change. But the first step is to stop pretending the mythology is true, stop denying the reality.

The press is not now, nor has it been for some time, nor is it likely again to be, free.