Veteran journalist Dan Rather is currently on stage at the Big Tent in Denver speaking on the dangers of media consolidation.

(remember, live streaming coverage can be found at http://www.commoncause.org/bigtent.)

He is pointing out something we discussed in our media reform plan for a new administration that the founders of this nation explicitly protected the press in the Bill of Rights because it is the role of the press to inform the public about what the government is doing right or wrong.

Rather says that his experience is that consolidation and corporatization of the media has led to a media that focuses more on safe stories and regurgitating the administration's message as to what they want the people to hear. And of course, that is what the media is NOT supposed to do.

He says the reason the mainstream press isn't more critical is that they are afraid of being accused of editorializing simply by researching and reporting facts that don't fit with what the administration wants people to hear.

His key message is that we NEED citizen journalism, we NEED owners with the guts to take any heat from talk radio, and we NEED to stop media consolidation.

Blogging is funny.  Sometimes you feel passionately about something, write a blog, and nobody seems to notice.

Other times, what you write seems to hit a nerve.  Earlier this week, I blogged on the scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.  My blog took mainstream media to task for not picking up on the ill treatment of wounded soldiers by the Army bureaucracy much sooner.  Smaller media outlets like the online magazine Salon, had started running stories in 2003.  And in 2005, there were congressional hearings that looked at some of these problems, problems also explored by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).  My point was that investigative reporting that could have dug into this issue sooner was stymied by a powerful consolidated media that valued profits over good journalism, and that cut reporting jobs, and failed to give journalists the time and resources they need to do enterprise reporting that uncovers such abuses.

What I wrote got quite a bit of attention in journalism blogs, including www.poynter.org and www.grumpyeditor.com. And then the editor of www.TheNation.com asked me to write a column on the same issue.  That attracted three responses from readers so far!

Two of the respondents agreed with me about the impact of consolidated media, but felt that no one could do anything to change its impact, and that we should be grateful when good stories ever got reported.

One journalist sent me an e-mail that tore into my argument, contending that it is only when big media like The Washington Post report a story does the story gain any real attention.He also said that is was "easy to blame the media" but that Salon's readers were responsible for not reacting to Salon's report.

I'd love to hear from our Common Cause audience on this.  Are you concerned about the future of fact-based investigative journalism?  Should reporters have uncovered the problems at Walter Reed sooner?  Do you think we "blame the media" for our own failings as citizens?

You would have to be dead on our the moon to not have heard about the appalling living conditions and Byzantine red tape that dogs wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Two weeks ago, a two-part series in the Washington Post documented the plight of soldiers harmed in battle who, after discharge as inpatients, find themselves in a medical limbo, living in buildings plagued by mold, peeling paint and rodents, and waiting endlessly for medical appointments and for government paperwork that will help them get their lives back in order.  The series provoked huge coverage from other media outlets and prompted House hearings, and caused the firings of the top brass at the Medical Center, leading to the resignation of the Secretary of the Army.

The series has been hailed as a testament to the power of a free press.  And it does demonstrate what happens when a powerful newspaper like The Washington Post takes on an issue.

The two-part series in Sunday's and Monday's Washington Post was riveting.  But like the missing limbs of the soldiers so ill treated at Walter Reed Hospital, the Post's series also was missing a limb.  It explained the WHAT of the story - the bureaucracy, unfeeling paperwork and meaningless rules that kept soldiers badly wounded in the Iraq War from getting the care and respect they deserved.  But the series largely failed to get to the why of the story.  The series was still worth doing.  The day after it was published, the Army announced it was renovating the patient building on the sprawling Walter Reed campus that most needed fixing up.

And a second Post story reported that an investigation was being launched into the possible unethical conduct of a Walter Reed official who, critics charge, was so preoccupied with founding his own soldiers relief foundation, that he neglected his duties managing a system that was supposed to match up soldier families to donors wishing to help. And Walter Reed is increasing staffing to better deal with the flood of the wounded, a flood that the anticipated "surge" in Iraq will only make worse.

I belong to the Committee of Concerned Journalists, and last night attended a preview of "News War: Secrets, Spin and the Future of News" that Frontline will begin airing on PBS at 9 p.m. tonight. I can't tell you much about the series, because Frontline opted to show us a very small slice of the series, which will be aired in four segments this month and next.  What I can tell you is that the panel discussion to promote the series reminded me once again, of why I left mainstream journalism.  The panelists seemed totally oblivious to the huge fight to totally corporatize our media, including the Internet, and its implication for diversity of viewpoint, freedom of expression, and innovation.

Indeed, when I asked a question about net neutrality -- the right of individuals to access any information and use any lawful application on the Internet without the interference of an Internet Service Provider -- the panelists were almost totally unresponsive.  Dana Priest, a very big-time Washington Post reporter, asked: "What's net neutrality?"  The fact that she asked the question truly is an indictment of her own newspaper, which continues to cover media issues as business stories, and buries them in the business section of their paper.

But far more disappointing was the response of Scott Moore, vice president for Yahoo! News, who explained net neutrality to his colleagues on the panel, but then claimed it was "a tempest in a teapot," offering the bogus argument that in a competitive media marketplace, any company that withheld content that people wanted would find those individuals choosing another cable or broadband provider.  Of course, that argument is so fraught with inaccuracies, it is pathetic.  First of all, everyone knows that when a consumer contracts with a cable or telephone company for a bundle of services, it is extremely difficult to switch services.  Secondly, companies are not going to cut off access to information, they are just going to make some information way more difficult to get to.  You won't be able to find www.commoncause.org on a search engine, or when you try to access us, it will take far longer to reach us.

It is no secret that cable and phone companies want to make the Internet a vehicle for selling things and entertainment, a replica of cable with all its lack of choice and big profits.

Net Neutrality is confusing, and the complexities of the issue have not been clarified by the debate between supporters and opponents of Net Neutrality - especially when many of those debating are politicians or big corporations.

For example, earlier this month at the Senate Commerce Committee's mark up of the telecom bill, Senator Stevens (R-Alaska) argued that a non-discrimination amendment to the bill was unnecessary because the net effect of the bill was non-discrimination.  Stevens' remarks were in direct contrast to arguments in favor of net neutrality, which claim the bill would unquestionably allow for discrimination on the Internet.  It is difficult to know exactly what Net Neutrality is and why it is necessary when those arguing about it (read: Senator Stevens) purposefully manipulate their language.

Certain politicians are not the only ones deceiving their audiences about Net Neutrality, for Corporate interests have undertaken similar trickery.  Take AT&T's "Hands Off the Internet" campaign, which claims that Net Neutrality will ruin the Internet by clogging it's "pipes," and that any legislation in favor of Net Neutrality is dangerously preemptive.

When politicians mislead and corporate interests lie, the American public should be able to turn to the press for the truth.  Yet far too often, news articles present superficial fluff instead of in-depth research, journalists accept their sources' information as fact without digging deeper, and the media seems more like government propaganda than a government watchdog.