I have added remarks to what actually may be a pretty naïve short entry by Mark Karlin of BuzzFlash on the actual sponsorship of a candidate by CNN. First Mark…then yours truly. (Thanks to John Kalbrener for passing this on.)

From Mark Karlin BuzzFlash

December 18, 2010

Did you hear the joke about CNN sponsoring a Republican presidential candidate debate with the Tea Party as a partner?

Well, it's not a joke.

According to Mother Jones, "Sam Feist, CNN's political director, says the arrangement was designed to give undecided voters a way to educate themselves about ' "diverse perspectives" within the Republican Party, including those of the Tea Party.' It's not the first time CNN has partnered with this group. Earlier this year, CNN embedded with Tea Party Express on one of its bus tours, giving the group extensive (positive) coverage."

Hold that outraged laughter for a moment. Each year, the media corporations get more and more skewed toward titillation and craven appeals to "targeted news marketing." And that is dangerous to a democracy.

Television news, in particular, has long since become an entertainment product, something that is sandwiched between commercials. To get higher fees for ads, the mediacorporations need to attract more viewers. And to attract more viewers, they need to sensationalize and reinforce a viewer's worldview, not objectively report the news.

Driscoll: Truth has barely ever surfaced in "The News." Dating to the first carvings in stone and the original parchment and papyrus scribbling, writers of their content have had an agenda, and the "truth" has been mixed in and through the portrayal of facts as the writers/editors wanted the readers to believe them.

It takes very little research and understanding of the history of written and verbal communications to understand that every word uttered and every paragraph written has, to the smaller or greater degree, been infused with spin. Hell, the town criers knew the time, but all was not always well, despite their proclamations.

From Gibbon and Aristotle on down to the present day, the search for truth in the news is a futile one.

There's more, obviously, but we need to wake up the public, even to our own biases in reporting and presenting public affairs we find compelling, if necessary, if only to keep people from being sucked in as they have for millennia by the promise of printing and airing "The Truth."