Tomorrow morning's edition of the New York Times features an engrossing piece by Frank Rich on media bias and the downfall of television news. Entitled "This Time Bill O'Reilly Got It Right" (don't worry, it's not a right wing diatribe), Rich delivers zinger after zinger as he takes the media to task for its leanings.

If a stopped clock is right twice a day, why shouldn't Bill O'Reilly be right at least once in a blue moon? When Fox News's most self-infatuated star attacked CNN for keeping James Carville and Paul Begala as hosts on "Crossfire" after they had joined the Kerry campaign, he fingered yet another symptom of the decline and fall of the American news culture. "In the wake of the vicious attacks on Fox News for allegedly being `G.O.P. TV,' I expected the media to brutally dismember CNN and the new boys on John Kerry's bus," Mr. O'Reilly wrote in his syndicated column. "But instead it's been the silence of the lambs from the press. Can you say media bias?"

Yes, you can, though it must be said in the same breath that Mr. O'Reilly is only half-right. Fox News isn't "allegedly" G.O.P. TV — it is G.O.P. TV.

At this point at reading the story, I was still somewhat concerned that Rich's piece would indeed turn out to be the conservative diatribe his headline might have indicated. Rich blasts the decision by CNN to allow Paul Begala and James Carville to continue as anchors of its program "Crossfire" despite the fact that they are advising John Kerry's campaign (even if informally). CNN, Rich says, is "hemorrhaging in quality and viewers" not just because of this alleged political slant to the left (which he buys into to a degree) but also because it is simply not as good as it used to be.

Soon, however, Rich turns his focus back to the media as a whole and exposes exactly what's wrong with the way that journalists are giving the American people their news. Here are a few of his best points:

• What much of the other news media have offered as an alternative has not been an alternative at all. At some point after 9/11, the news business jumped the shark and started relaying unchallenged administration propaganda — though with less zeal and showbiz pizazz than Fox. The notorious March 2003 presidential news conference at which not a single probing question was asked by the entire White House press corps heralded the broader Foxification to come. As Michael Massing, a frequent critic of this newspaper and others, put it on PBS's NewsHour, the failure of the American news media to apply proper skepticism to the administration's stated rationale for war in Iraq is "one of the most serious institutional failures of the press" since our slide into Vietnam. Mr. Massing attributes some of this to the fear of challenging a president then at the height of his popularity. Whatever the explanation — and there are many, depending on the news organization — the net effect was that the entire press came off as Fox Lite. The motive to parrot the administration line may not have been ideological, as it was at Fox, but since the misinformation was the same, news consumers can't be blamed for finding that a distinction without a difference.
  
  
• From Jessica Lynch to "Mission Accomplished" to, most recently, the bogus charges of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, there is a tendency to give administration-favored fiction credibility first, often cementing the spin into fact well before the tough questions are asked (if they're ever asked).
  
  
• When the press isn't creating its own embarrassments, the administration will step in to intimidate and undermine journalists who don't regurgitate its approved narrative.
  
  
• ...the first of the Big Three anchors, Tom Brokaw, retires at NBC after the election. Mr. Brokaw's successor is Brian Williams, now most famous for the ridicule rightly heaped on him by Jon Stewart for his inability to articulate a single question for Al Sharpton during a live interview at the Democratic convention.

This is one of the best pieces of writing I have read in quite some time--in the news and in books. What is more, it captures the dilemma we face in this nation regarding our poor excuse for an independent media as well as any writer I've read in months. You should definitely pass this on to anyone who doesn't fully grasp the gravity of our problem with the media, and perhaps it will open up their minds to what's really happening in this country.

(PS: You should make them to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart so they can see how our traditional media are betraying us)