Media, Take Heed

Frank Rich's column on the growing cracks in the Bush administration's imagecraft is excellent, of course, but I'm particularly intrigued by one little almost-throwaway tidbit:

You know the world has changed when the widely despised news media have a far higher approval rating (77 percent) than the president (46 percent), as measured last week in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

I seem to remember the media's "approval rating" being well under 50% not so long ago. The fact that it appears to have cranked way up in the wake of some extremely and uncharacteristically anti-Bush reportage on the handling of Hurricane Katrina is very telling, and suggests to me that the public's appetite for Republican propaganda has worn very thin indeed, if I may employ some Tom Friedmanesque metaphor mashing.

Will the media take notice and start doing their jobs, in order to preserve their credibility? I doubt it. I believe their primary objective is pleasing their parent corporations, not garnering ratings or respect. But if I'm wrong, or if more and more people see the media for the right-wing spin outlet it has become, it could be very very good for the Democrats, and very very bad for the Republicans.

We shall see.