There are basically two views of the American people.

Ever since the right began crying “liberal media,” the challenge for the targets of those tantrums has been to figure out how to respond to the mewling. What PBS has done in the wake of Bill Moyers’ retirement is a case study in the futile effort of trying to appease the little brat.

This is not a happy time to be an entertainment industry executive.

Local TV news is the number one source of news for Americans. Seventy-eight percent of the country turns to it to find out what’s going on. The Internet may be growing as a news source, and some people still read the paper, but for most people, what’s on local TV news is pretty much what they know about where they live. If you care about the quality of democracy, you have to care about the quality of local TV news – even if you don’t watch it.

If Democrats decide to use the procedural move that Congress calls “reconciliation” to pass health care reform, get ready for a war of words. It will be won not by the biggest guns, but the biggest mouths. What’s true won’t matter; what’s loudest, what’s catchiest, will. That’s democracy in the age of newsertainment.

Why would Pfizer spend $100 million on two-minute TV ads that use a minute of that time admitting that their drug Chantix can cause “changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood,” “weird, unusual or strange dreams,” and “suicidal thoughts or actions”?

It\’s just about perfect that the week that LA Gang Tours launches is also the tenth anniversary of the start of the target=\”_hplink\”>Norman Lear Center.

Now that we’re about to entrust health reform to the tender mercies of the insurance industry, it’s sobering to see the skullduggery that one of California’s largest auto insurers is trying to pull on the state’s drivers.