In today's Washington Post, Howard Kurtz makes the following statement in defense of the MSM's coverage of the Cheney shooting.
I'd concede that the vice president is probably not their favorite politician. But in terms of it "mattering" -- did it matter to the average American that Bill Clinton was fooling around on his wife, or that Vince Foster committed suicide (to pick two matters that seemed to matter a great deal to the conservative commentariat)?
It matters when the vice president shoots another man because the character and responsiveness of our elected leaders matters. Had Cheney addressed this right away, it would have been a far more modest story.
The real issue with the MSM is that their mixture of ego and submissiveness make them TERRIBLE judges of what matters and what doesn't; and who has character and who doesn't. Not to mention the fact that, well, who in the hell appointed Howard Kurtz, Tim Russert, Mike Wallace, and Brit Hume the nation's morality cops.
Maybe, just maybe, if the MSM did a better job of reporting news stories that are important then the MSM wouldn't be losing audiences to the Internet. Not to mention the benefit that would accrue to the United States if the MSM spent more intellectual firepower on issue like Iraq, Health Care or Education, and less time covering Clinton's penis or Cheney's shotgun.