What has become of media watchdogs: hounded Nixon, Reagan, impeached Clinton ... now co-opted as a propaganda organ for the Bush administration

Armageddon Gets No Press - by Paul Craig Roberts: "August 2, 2005 | by Paul Craig Roberts

What has become of the print and TV media watchdogs who hounded President Nixon from office because he lied about when he learned of a minor burglary of no consequence in itself?

What became of the watchdog media that bayed after President Reagan because some low-level neoconservative officials sold arms to Iran and diverted the money to anti-communist insurgents in Latin America?

President Clinton was impeached by the House, though not convicted by the Senate, for lying about a sexcapade with a White House intern.

Now that we really need them, the watchdog media has hired out as public relations and propaganda shills for the Bush administration and the neocon network.

The entire Bush administration – not merely the president – is involved in the most extraordinary lies and fabrication of false intelligence claims in order to lead America into an unwarranted and illegal invasion of Iraq, an invasion that has cost the U.S. taxpayers $300 billion and resulted in the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of people.
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The mainstream media has been co-opted as a propaganda organ for the Bush administration. How did this come about?

It came about through media concentration. There are no longer independent voices in the mainstream media. American news reporting is a corporate operation run with a view to advertising profits and the accommodation of government in order to protect holdings of valuable federal licenses. For reporters and editors, knowing what to say and not to say is the main qualification for job security.