The Hard Truth About Journalism Today...

... (and earlier) by US investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power (2008):

"The problem is that we just don't have a press that really wants to challenge power on issues they consider 'personal.' Speaking at the 1985 Prayer Breakfast, Ronald Reagan said, 'I wish I could say more about it, but it's working precisely because it's private.' That should have been an invitation for investigative reporting. Instead the media, then and now, tends to acquiesce to elite secretiveness, not out of any conspiracy, but due to a culture of reverence for established power, liberal or conservative. Most journalists believe in meritocracy - not merely that it's a good idea, but that it actually exists. They know that some politicians game the system, but they're committed to the idea that the system basically works. And it does, but not in favor of democracy." (Following up on the 'Family': Six questions for Jeff Sharlet, Bill Wasik, harpers.org/blog/2008/06

Need anything more be said about this subject, really? Except, of course, that Julian Assange towers over this knee-bending rabble like a colossus.