Today I was reading a CNN story about Petraeus speaking before Congress. It struck me that they quoted Bush's statistics about decreasing violence, then they quoted Dick Durbin saying the numbers were manipulated, then they site a poll on how many Americans oppose the war. There was no reporting, just copying the AP report which is stenographing quotes and pollsters. Now, this is nothing new. But this particular case stuck out to me because of how much it degraded the FACT (yes, it's a fact. news organizations are supposed to report these) that the reports were manipulated. That wasn't Dick Durbin's opinion, that was a fact. And they don't even go into how he, along with millions of people on blogs and websites all over, know that the statistics are manipulated. So while they're not lying, they're certainly not telling the truth.
Here's the article: Iraq Petraeus
And so here's how our media is decaying: One Quote at a time. One poorly written, non-fact checked report. One report where nobody lifted a finger to find out what the truth is. The media doesn't even attempt to investigate anymore, and that's what we expect from them.