What Really Happened

I clicked Google News just now to get a handle on the most prevalently reported stories of the day, and the first two were USA Today and CNN, both headlined (and canted) something like this: "Powell, Rice, Defend PreWar Intelligence."

Of course, these two puppets had been paraded out onto the Sunday talking-head shows, then given additional exposure by followup reporting in the print media (imagine: it's now news to be on a news program!), so that for a quick twenty-minute appearance these clowns get 24 hours of exposure.

Okay, okay, that's the power of incumbency. I understand that. The Neanderthal Right was probably twisting similarly during the Clinton years while his drones made similar appearances. So, what the hell.

But what about this idea, a response to the development of global news in the Internet age: A tiny, ever-so-tiny nod to the ocean of cybernews that's available to those of us who care enough about the planet to pay attention, rather than to be fed news about its course by filtered, manufactured spoonfuls. It's this: A boxed item, maybe five columns wide, one-half page, bi-weekly in newspapers, and in weekly newsmagazines, called "UnReported News" or "The Other Side" or something.

Items gathered from Pakistan's papers or magazines, or Egypt's or Saudi Arabia's or Finland's or wherever, that bear upon our nation, our view of world events, our destiny. What about such a display? Is there is no space for it? Is newsprint so expensive? Or is it that our journalists and publishers don't know about such items? Or don't care.

Just asking.