The Implosion of the Drive-by Media

EIB featured a great summary of what they call the "drive-by" media:

Treat the news [...as a] packaged product. People that put it together every day have a reason for choosing what's in the package and what isn't. They want it packaged a certain way, and they're trying to tell you that this is all you need to know that happened today, and we're not embellishing anything, but clearly their news judgment's gone to hell, too. You still have people at CBS saying that the forged documents are real. And you know why? Because nobody's proved they're not! Under that standard, you could make any assertion you want, and unless somebody can [disprove] it, then it's true. So you can put up forged documents about Bush's National Guard service, and despite the fact that people proved that the documents are forgeries, if somebody can't come along and prove the story is wrong, then that's the standard. Mary Mapes has even said this. You have to understand the context in which these people are operating and understand that they are losing.

The product is fatally damaged and that's precisely why mainstream media's ratings are in the toilet and circling the flush-hole.

The latest of many examples is this piece of packaged dung from the AP, which Powerline's John Hinderaker shreds in marvelous fashion:

In a sweet victory for the administration, the Senate voted 89-10 to renew the Patriot Act. Only Democrats opposed the measure. Harry Reid, who once boasted proudly of having "killed" the Patriot Act, now voted meekly for it. Note, though, how the Associated Press does whatever it can to insert pro-Democrat themes into a story about a Bush triumph: The 89-10 vote marked a bright spot in President Bush's troubled second term as his approval ratings dipped over the war in Iraq and his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. What does any of that have to do with today's vote? Nothing at all; the AP just threw it in. Then there is this: For months, their tough-on-terror image has been tarnished by the revelation that the president authorized a secret domestic wiretapping program. The report in December gave Democrats ammunition for their charge that the Bush administration had run amok in its zeal to root out terrorists. Huh? How did the secret wiretapping program "tarnish" the administration's "tough-on-terror image"? It didn't. It enhanced it, and the public has solidly backed the administration's position. And what's this about Democrats charging that the administration has "run amok"? I don't recall any Democrats saying that; I think the AP reporter, Laurie Kellman, is speaking for herself.

Given two articles without bylines, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between an AP "news" article and a Democratic Party press release.