EXTRA! EXTRA!

You know how nostalgia works, right? You think back to the "good ole days" with rose-colored glasses firmly in place. It's much easier if you weren't actually alive for the "good ole days" that you are fondly recalling. If you can recall them filtered through media's rose-colored glasses, even better!
And there is no better trip down memory lane, when the memories are generated by those nostalgia-loving, white men.
You see, for the majority of people, the "good" old days weren't so good. In fact, our love of the skewed version of history that our mind has painted should get smacked down more often than it does.
Frequently, when some teevee personality waxes rhapsodic about the 1950s, someone kindly points out that the 50s weren't so hot for African-Americans.
Yet we continue to pine for the good old days.
In fact, I found myself wishing for the "good old days" of American journalism after this month's mediagasm over the non-issue of our President's birth certificate. I heartily agreed with Mr. Obama when he chastised the press for their coverage of this "silliness." It made me wish that the three major networks had never discovered the infotainment industry and turned news into a for-profit endeavor. It made me long for Edward R. Murrow and Bob Woodward, investigative reporting and Upton Sinclair.
And then it brought me up short when I reminded myself that way back when, the news of the day was little more than it is now. Just more slowly disseminated.