The news that CNN is planning to axe "Crossfire" - discussed in a wonderful piece by Frank Rich - is long overdue. For those of us interested in seeing an end to vacuous punditry masquerading as serious journalism, CNN's "Reliable Sources" should be next on the chopping block.

Reliable Sources" is a program that (according to CNN) "turns a critical lens on the media" where a group of journalists, pundits and pseudo-reporters discuss media issues of the day. If you want to watch a motley crew congratulating themselves for pretending to be "critical" about the industry in which they work, nothing beats it. The first alarm bell should ring about the time that you hear that the program is fronted by none other than Howard Kurtz: the media critic for The Washington Post. You don't have to be Kant to see the massive conflict of interest here: the man hosting a program that purports to turn a "critical lens on the media" works for both The Washington Post Company (owners of The Washington Post and Newsweek magazine) and Time Warner (owners of CNN, HBO, TIME magazine, etc., etc, etc.). It's not a good start, and it gets worse.

The real problem with "Reliable Sources" is that it purports to be "critical" about the news business, all the while acting as a veiled cheerleader for a corporate media system that has surrendered to the Bush administration over everything from WMDs in Iraq to social security. The genius of the program is that it manages to give the impression of critique while staying completely milquetoast: the guests say how reporting was bad, how editors failed and generally give the news media a black eye. The logic of the system, however, is never questioned: critiques are almost always at the individual, not the systemic level. It is pre-packaged and commodified dissent.

I recently examined 56 episodes of "Reliable Sources," aired during 2003 and 2004, and noticed an overwhelming tendency on the part of Howard Kurtz and his guests to blame reporters ("they did a bad job"), editors ("they didn't keep an eye on their reporters") and/or the audience ("they are more interested in entertaining stories"). The solution, using this logic, is to simply retrain or replace the bad apples contaminating the basket. Problem solved.

This simplistic answer obscures the point that the ills of the U.S. news media go much deeper than individual failure or laziness, and are rooted in both hyper-commercialization and the connections between corporate media owners, government, advertisers, and investors. The real irony is that "Reliable Sources" is actually "Exhibit A" for what is wrong with journalism in the United States: instead of tackling endemic problems like the influence of advertising money and profit margins on news, guests sit around and blow hot air for endless hours about how Reporter X is "liberal" and Editor Z is "conservative".

During the 14 months of programming I examined, the direct influence of advertisers on the media was discussed explicitly a grand total of one time. Over a year of programming. Hundreds of reporters. Critical eye on the media. Objectivity. One time. And who discussed it? A top journalist at a top TV news program who had a juicy story spiked by a cowardly editor? No. It was comedian and talk-show host Bill Maher who discussed how his show, Politically Incorrect, was cut by ABC after he described the 9/11 terrorists as "brave". Using "Reliable Sources" as a barometer, advertisers almost never influence content: an assertion that would be laughable if it were not so pathetic.

The love-in with power did not stop with advertisers, however. In the episodes I combed through, consisting of over 250,000 words of dialog, the FCC was mentioned in reference to only three stories: the Janet Jackson breast incident (of course), Howard Stern and obscenity (no surprise), and the attempt by the FCC to "relax" media ownership laws in the U.S. In typical "Reliable Sources" fashion, however, the FCC ownership issue was glossed over in the final minute of one episode, and was not offered as a topic for debate to any of the guests.

The fact that a show billing itself as a "critical" examination of the U.S. media managed to avoid discussing a development that, in the words of host Howard Kurtz, could "radically reshape the media landscape in cities across the country" remains one of the great, spineless escape acts in news history. Why discuss a little thing like a radical change in ownership rules when you can, as was done on "Reliable Sources" in twelve separate episodes, beat the dead horse of the Jayson Blair/NYT affair until your arms go numb? The first story illustrates how government caved into corporate media giants at the expense of our democratic right to information, while the latter is a sexy example of how one crooked journalist bamboozled some less-than-observant editors. No contest!

Of course, to be fair, do we really expect people who rake in hundreds of thousands - and in some cases millions - of dollars a year from the very corporations who benefit from the relaxation of ownership rules, the avalanche of advertising money and the good graces of those in power to muster the courage to expose the flaws in the commercial system? No, and that is the problem. Shows like "Reliable Sources" only highlight how toothless the corporate news media can be when faced with the ire of their paymasters. It is much easier to blame weak, trite, lapdog journalism on bad reporters and dim-witted audience members, because the alternative is far too terrible to consider.

Christian Christensen is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, Turkey. He can be reached at bahcesehircc@yahoo.com.

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