Uh, the NY Times is the closest thing we have to an official government newspaper, so I think you're severely mistaken if you think this counts as holding government accountable.

The NY Times convinced a lot of people to support the Iraq war when it ran its poorly fact-checked story fed to its reporter by propagandists funded by the CIA. I remember how profoundly my view of the Iraq situation changed when I read all of that in the paper I trusted at the time.

Did you really believe that the New York Times was infallible?

It's not a question of fallibility. It's a question of how propaganda functions in society. The Times has become a voice for the powerful interests in the US.

Judith Miller's "mistakes" were hugely influential to me because I was naive... similarly I think those who believe this lawsuit means anything are similarly naive.

They're all out there to push their own agenda and profit from what they print, and one act considered in isolation cannot be the sole deciding factor for the integrity of a publication.

I can't speak for US media but the News International scandal we've had in the UK, and the corporate reaction to the allegations, pretty much says it all. "We're doing it for the good of the public!"

Like fuck they are.

Maybe. There's always the aclu [1], and I'm a proud donor. It's also worth noting that the NYT hasn't always been on the side of the angels. See for example the iraq war -- if Judith Miller wasn't literally blowing the administration she was certainly doing so on the pages of the paper, and it's hard to imagine the NYT's support for the war didn't have an impact on the politics of the support on the left for the war.

As for something like fox news, well, I recently saw a survey that I can't produce on hand demonstrating their audience was actively misinformed about the issues of the day.

Anyway, I feel better about not for profits like the aclu than about the NYT or fox or whomever acting as bulwarks against government overreach.

[1] http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FJ_donationh...

OK, but this lawsuit is textbook journalism. And the ACLU could be doing it, but they aren't. In this particular instance the Times is.

Is this sarcasm? Do you work for News Corp? This kind of insanity from governments shouldn't exist in the first place!

It does. And will. So we might need News Corp.

“In normal times, evil should be fought by good, but in times like this, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil”