"You know, look, I have great respect for the media. I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news."

"To President Bush, the news is like a cigarette. You can get it filtered or unfiltered. And which way does he prefer it? Well, that depends on the circumstances. When he is trying to send a message to the public, Bush prefers to have it go out unfiltered. He feels, for example, that the "good news about Iraq" is getting filtered out by the national media. "Somehow you just got to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly to the American people," he said the other day. So, lately he has been talking to local and regional media, whom he trusts to filter less.

But when he is on the receiving end, Bush prefers his news heavily filtered. "I glance at the headlines, just to get kind of a flavor," he told Brit Hume of Fox News last month. But, "I rarely read the stories" because "a lot of times there's opinions mixed in with news." Instead, "I get briefed by [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card and Condi [Rice, the national security adviser] in the morning."

"Bush apparently thinks (if that is the word) that the publicly available media contaminate the news with opinion but Condi Rice and Andy Card are objective reporters. Anyone who has either been a boss or had a boss will find it easier, knowing that Bush believes this, to understand how he can also believe that things are going swimmingly in Iraq. And where does the Rice-Card News Service obtain its uncontaminated information? Bush conceded his shocking suspicion that Rice and Card "probably read the news themselves." They do? Whatever is next? The president apparently is willing to tolerate the reading of newspapers by his staff members in the privacy of their own homes, as long as they don't flaunt this unseemly habit by bringing the wretched things into the White House or referring to them at staff meetings."

"Most people in editorial control nowadays are market-oriented centrists. For the most part, stories are chosen for their general interest and mass appeal. Station managers and news directors routinely define success or failure in ratings, demographics, and winning day parts, not in the importance of a story. ... In producing stories, the biggest no-no is to offend a substantial chunk of the audience by reporting things in a way that goes again their attitudes. If you need proof of this, hark back tot he coverage of the World Trade Center attack. Most on-air reporters behaved as either government cheerleaders or psychotherapists to the masses. One month after the attack, President Bush held his first formal press conference. In it, he gave virtually no information that wasn't already public. Regardless of the question asked, he kep repated the same mantra about American resolve. Yet afterward, local and network anchors described him as "forthcoming" and "in command." Everyone had read the same poll numbers. On that day, President Bush had a 90 percent approval rating. No one was in the mood to hear him criticized, least of all, news directors."