A Nose for News, Tweaked By the No's for News

[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
[Commentary] An information war is breaking out on multiple fronts, with journalists caught in the crossfire. Federal investigators are looking into several national security leaks to the press. Government agencies are trying to muzzle staffers who don't toe the official line. Cartoonists are the latest to find their work denounced, with violent results in the Middle East. And it doesn't stop there. Politicians are even trying to creatively edit what's said about them online. All these pressure tactics are being employed in the name of influencing public opinion, which increasingly means manipulating information and controlling how -- and whether -- it is made public. Journalists, who are genetically disposed toward greater openness, are having a harder time fighting these battles because of declining public faith in their profession. With everyone scrambling for every conceivable advantage, it's important that journalists remain honest brokers of information. But in a world where they are being shot at, prosecuted, sued and stonewalled, that's increasingly hard to do.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/12/AR200602...
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