Your filters are overly selective and are clouding your judgement. The press is also filled with feel-good stories of GIs doing good works and public service in the war zone.

Sure, the press is sensational and tries to go for the smoking gun and the "Aha" expose, the dirt and the sneer, but it also indulges in sentimentality and human interest pap, and it loves stories of heroism and derring-do; ("...with the third battalion, 1st Marines, in Baghdad, this is Roland Hedley") anything that will keep eyeballs glued to the screens and turning the pages. And of course, scandal always sells better, and builds more careers. But there is no overall pattern, no conspiracy, no smoking gun. I watch the same news you do and I think it is fair, overall. It may be trivialized and over-simplified and sometimes infuriatingly simple-minded, but I just don't see the pattern that is so obvious to you. It is certainly more middle of the road than the population as a whole, but I can't help that, and neither can you.

I do see bias on the blogosphere, on both left and right channels, and in other venues too, I love reading "Mother Jones", but I take what they say with a kilo of salt; so I know I'm not blind to it. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the press is scrupulously honest or precisely middle of the road, or fiercely determined to be be exactly fair on every issue. In fact, it's rather chaotic and undisciplined (except for its determination to leave plenty of room for commercials). But as a whole, I think it is not serving us badly or leading us astray, except perhaps for its grossly superficial and sensationalistic treatment of every topic. And I'm sure we're both in perfect agreement on that.

As for "why is the media fighting to get some stories spiked", you tell me. You already have conceded it's not a deliberate conspiracy, that it's some kind of vague mutually held cultural bias inherent to journalists and intellectuals. If this is so, why should it be so? Does going to college and getting a journalism degree make you a lefty? Or are lefties more likely to get degrees in journalism? Or is it just that they're not rightie enough for you? For crying out loud, look at this thread you initiated as incontrovertible proof of your suspicions. It is about as neutral and inconsequential as a news story can get. A little old lady in a war zone gets a nasty surprise and a close call. So what else is new? Are we supposed to not publicize this scary story because someone might interpret it as an attempt to show how innocent people can get hurt in a war, and because that obvious fact might be interpreted by someone as a call for Americans not to be fighting that war? If that was the case, they would have deliberately mentioned it was an American bullet, fired by some crazed bloodthirsty GI determined to waste a little old lady.

I know you and I will never agree on this, but as far as I'm concerned, there is no "there" there. I should know, after all, I'm a bright guy and I watch the news every day.