Sometimes I feel that we get so caught up in the daily news cycle and the resulting media criticism that we lose touch with something that we all know-- though we may need to be reminded of it.  This fact is that mass-market investigative journalism is alive and well, using the old-fashioned medium of the radio.  

I've listened to a number of great reports on the radio in the past couple of days that have surprised me with their breadth, brought me to tears, made me laugh out loud, and above all, made me think.  While it may seem so to some readers here, the primaries are not consuming all the media's oxygen, and access to broadband internet means that many of us have access to an incredible range of reports that can make us think about the war, about poverty (both at home and abroad) and about domestic and foreign policy.

This stuff is everywhere-- below the fold, just a few of the radio programs and reports that I would recommend for a wide view of the worlds events.  Most are available via podcast as when I get tired of one issue dominating (or seemingly dominating) the airwaves, I find podcasts a great way to have on-demand broadcasting of what I'm (and I'd hazard, all of us are) interested in.  

I was making myself some breakfast, and I connected a few things.  Today in Albany (where my NPR station is based), a mosque was raided by the FBI, and they claim to have discovered a plot to acquire a surface to air missile (no reports of a launcher, or anything).  It was the way it was reported that most interested me, and led me to think that what I was hearing was the future of terror alerts.  

Josh Marshall brought up an interesting point today.  ABC News online had a headline asking if John Kerry lied about his medals in 1971.  Marshall asked how many times ABC has used the 'l' word to describe Bush.  

I did a Nexis search for 'Bush' within one paragraph of 'lie' for the past five years of ABC transcripts.   These are the results (a reply to something in a different thread, but it's too long to post there):

Earlier, on "Fox News: 'Rock Bottom,'" I got into a discussion about Alan Chartock, and an article that he wrote in the WAMC program guide about his feelings about the Bush appointees to NPR's oversight board, and whether these appointees have anything to do with Bob Edward's being fired from Morning Edition.  
The article was too long for me to post in that thread, so I created this diary to post it (I know, horrible reason to make a diary-- and my first one, at that) because I couldn't find a link to it.  I'll post the piece in the extended copy, but it's obvious to any listener that there is something going on in our NPR that has caused the quality of their news reporting to deteriorate horrible over the last few years.  Obviously it's a problem older than Bush, but could Bush's appointees be hastening the decline of NPR?