Mainstream media.

Maybe there is always a theme to the first two posts of the day. There was yesterday. The theme was food, and I went on to restrict my posts yesterday to that theme. That would be a strange way to run a blog. Start with whatever strikes you that day for the first two posts, then derive a theme, then adhere to that theme for the day. I'm not saying I'm going to go on to run my blog that way, but I can easily see the theme for today from the last two posts, and, being a lawprof, I feel that I pretty much always could, if necessary, look at two things and find something they have in common.

Today's theme, then, would be mainstream media.

1. On that theme, I like this recent piece by Jonah Goldberg about the arrogance of mainstream media:

In the Middle Ages, aristocrats and clerics were protected by a panoply of rules and customs - sumptuary laws, for example - that separated them from the peons. Henry VIII declared that no man below the rank of earl could "wear cloth of gold or silver, or silk of purple color" in an effort to maintain a color-coding system for the lower classes.

Well, elite journalists may not want a color-coding system for the rabble, but they do seem keen on having special laws just for them.

2. Then there's the retirement of Bill Moyers, who goes out criticizing. MSM criticizing MSM, apparently from another planet:

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee," says Moyers. "We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."

3. Give credit to the many dedicated journalists who serve us. Fifty-four of them were killed this past year. Twenty-three of these were in Iraq -- mostly Iraqis, deliberately targeted for working with western media. The second most dangerous place for journalists: the Philippines. Here's a Philippine editorial (with a sad cartoon) discussing the problem:

[W]hile journalists in other countries are jailed, or are subject to harsh censorship and media laws, media practitioners in the Philippines are paying an even greater -- indeed, the ultimate -- price: They are being murdered with impunity.

4. Janet Museveni, the first lady of Uganda urges journalists to report the good news: "Do not bring Uganda down in the eyes of the world. We are a country on this globe that is so blessed. Show what is beautiful and not just kids with big tummies and brown hair." (Loss of hair pigmentation is a symptom of malnutrition.)