"The Fourth Estate is independent and should remain so. As news providers, we should go there and see for ourselves." That's WBZ-TV news director Peter Brown, commenting on what is described as "a Bush administration plan to transmit news footage from Iraq for local TV outlets in an attempt to supplement media coverage from that war-torn country."

That's fine, but it presumes that the Fourth Estate has been reporting real news. They have the right to go there and see for themselves, but they don't have the right to a monopoly on the news.

There's a difference between Freedom of the Press and the kind of constitutional status so many journalists arrogate to themselves. They are free, not sacrosanct, nor are they above the law of the market. They pay lip service to the idea that they need the trust of their audience, but they don't seem to understand that they can't just ignore a major story like the success of our troops in Iraq and not lose that trust.

Here's the kicker, Charles Kravetz, vice president of news at the regional cable news outlet NECN says "I think the government has no business being in the news business." If the media were doing their jobs, there wouldn't be anything different for government to broadcast.