> After Judith Miller, Jayson Blair and today's Tom Harper, I would say there is a good amount of data indicating the quality has in fact diminished across the

> After Judith Miller, Jayson Blair and today's Tom Harper, I would say there is a good amount of data indicating the quality has in fact diminished across the board. The WaPost itself is a symbol of this decay: in 30 years they went from Watergate hounds to Iraq-invasion cheerleaders. If you look at the average column nowadays, it's all a bunch of "senior official sources" briefing utter lies in order to further their agendas. I have no reason to believe it was better in the past. News organizations are human institutions, and like all the others they struggle with corruption and other failings. An major example off the top of my head: http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/books/the-journalist-and-the-dictator.html http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/books/the-journalist-and-t...