There is no single explanation for the holes in U.S. news coverage of the Bush Administration, but Brent Cunningham argues that journalists' devotion to what they call "objectivity" played a role by making them "passive recipients of news, rather than aggressive analyzers and explainers of it." Moreover, he notes, the concept itself is unclear: "Ask ten journalists what objectivity means and you'll get ten different answers."

"They may not get as much attention as their media counterparts, but dozens of Pentagon public affairs officers are 'embedded' right alongside the reporters in Iraq," PR Week reports. "The Pentagon also maintains the Coalition Press Information Center (CPIC) in Kuwait, a base of operations for public affairs officers not traveling with troops.

"In the good old days, the US used to tell a lie -- crass propaganda -- and it would stick for a long time. Journalists would have to scurry for months before they could expose the lies, but by then it would be almost irrelevant," writes London-based economist Paul de Rooij