Syd - as a working member of the media, some sections of your article I'd agree with but most I'd dismiss..
Sue a good chunk of media reporting can miss the point, but your various examples also don't hit the point. The business about Egypt for example. Most the Aus media relies on foreign news wires anyway, and the point about Egypt requiring foreign aid to survive would be well known. Its just not repeated in every story..

Now this bit..
"A lot of the coverage of China is breathtakingly ignorant. It is assumed the huge Chinese expenditure on infrastructure is some kind of stupidity or simple rorting. The fact that the Chinese have been building the world's most comprehensive base of alternative energy networks, by a large margin, while prices for the required metals are relatively low, is ignored."

In this case the media has got it right and you've got it wrong. A lot of it is rorting, driven by a combination of politics (every province has to have a major meeting center for example) and corruption.. certainly not by the markets .. the investment in wind farms is particularly absurd as I recall reading that at one point about one third of all turbines were not connected to a grid.. Why? Because the grids were not legally compelled to take it, so they didn't.. The wind farms have mostly not been built to generate power but to meet targets.. its a completely different system.

As for your bit about portable nuclear power plants, they would simply never be allowed in Aus. Forget them.

Good article.

Collectively the msm is stupid.

There are many examples but what irks me especially is the arrogance of the msm.

A little exercise: name your 5 best journalists, from any media form.

Syd, there was a time when the mainstream media did fulfil a useful function. There was a diversity of opinion and a willingness to criticise governments before they embarked on some form of stupidity. The rot set in during the 1960s. Operation Mockingbird was one vehicle in the US to co-opt the mainstream that has been very successful.

Under Reagen the rot accelerated with the number of media companies rapidly reducing down to only 5 from the more than 30 that existed in the 1960s. Even more significantly not only was ownership concentrated but the major media became owned by the same companies that profited from the US policy of perpetual war.

There are literally dozens of major stories each year that are suppressed by the mainstream. Project Censored has for a number of years covered the top 25 stories and while many of the examples are American, ceteris paribus, the same applies here. The concentration of ownership is even greater here than anywhere else in the so-called western world. Neither of the big two exactly distinguish themselves by tackling major issues in a critical way.

Were it not for the internet it would be almost impossible to keep abreast of what is happening in many parts of the world. Of course, one has to sort out the wheat from the chaff, but a degree of diligence leads one to a relatively short list of what (or who) is reliable.
It is little wonder that the internet frightens many of our politicians because their ability to manage the flow of news is compromised. Witness the treatment of whistleblowers such as Manning and Snowden and compare that with the perpetrators of the crimes they exposed.

Maintaining the freedom of the internet will be one of the great challenges of the next decade.

James O'Neill
This statement
"the major media became owned by the same companies that profited from the US policy of perpetual war".
Look, James, maybe you should actually make an effort to read the media, or check the statistics on armed conflict.

The place where your theories on media ownership could even begin to apply would be the US. Look at the FOX news stuff and other outlets such as the Washington Post.. now sit and think.. you'll note that Fox pushes a patriotic line and was very much pro-gulf war.. you may argue that's because its owed by Rupert (although why Rupert would care about the war one way or another is beyond me).. However, you'll note that Fox is also more popular. It may be pushing the line for ideological reasons but its also one people want to hear.. now consider the rest of the US media .. with occasional exceptions they don't go the Fox line and are less popular..

Think about it, and save the idiotic media theories for someone who might believe them, and overlook problems such as a marked decline in conflicts in general (look at the UN statistics) - a lecture class in politics, perhaps?

Just another ridiculous bash at the Greens because they dare to believe we should uphold our own laws and obligations without punishing people for seeking asylum.

You Syd. are as puerile as the rest.

Marilyn Shepherd - To quote you "Just another ridiculous bash at the Greens"

Rather a broad statement, why not say what is wrong and how the article in your opinion is ridiculous or could it be you can't counter the information contained within the article.

"Just another ridiculous bash at the Greens"

The greens deserve all the bashings they get and more. It was green ideology, along with alp policy of "whatever it takes" which directly led to the deaths of over 1200 illegal immigrants.

The greens are not fit to be in government.

Before Marilyn gets shrill perhaps she would like to comment on this group of poor boat people:

http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2013/07/some-great-aussies-live-on-christmas-island-meet-a-dead-set-patriot-shaz-with-the-telephoto-lens.html

I bet they'll be in comancheros' colours as soon as they hit the mainland.

Hi Syd,

I agree with the overall thrust of your article however, it does however, seem to focus upon symptoms rather than causes.

There was a time when journalists not only sourced news, they collated, analyzed, substantiated, fact checked their sources and more importantly, drew on multiple sources where possible.

In the electronic world of journalism it seems that syndicated news offers choices, sadly there is evidence that some journalists have “preferred” sources. Much of today’s news is not news at all, it is opinion. Some journalists are guilty of combining preferred sources with their own opinion to produce lazy, biased and in the end, wholly distorted “news”.

When Curmudgeon points out that “Most the Aus media relies on foreign news wires anyway”, it seems to be and excuse rather than a cause. Add to this the issues of lack of knowledge about history, geography and geo-politics and we have a recipe for poor journalism.

One other factor worth note is the number of journalists who see themselves as, or even declare themselves as “activists”. Ideology has produced the socialization of almost every topic on the planet, sadly many in the media are leading the way on this.

Professional journalism has taken an absolute flogging in the last 25 years or so and is still heading south.