The demise of a mercenary corporate press...

Alex Cockburn [Counterpunch] hits the nail squarely when he writes of the corporate press in America:

"Weep not for yesterday’s papers, for the old Fourth Estate. At every critical hour, in every decade, it failed us. And yet they do weep" [stress added].

For example, three to four million dead in Vietnam (the havoc wreaked by our military/industrial complex was so great, and the carnage was so diffuse, that it can not be estimated more precisely), with the dutiful American press filing daily "reports" as if they were critical assessments of the facts, deceived an American public and, therefore, prolonged the quest of Empire in the sixties.

"AT EVERY CRITICAL HOUR, IN EVERY DECADE, IT FAILED US."

[Full article ("Who Needs Yesterday's Papers?") here.