The Big News Today . . .

seems to be Dan Rather's announcement of his retirement. I don't think this is something conservative bloggers should be beating their chests over. Rather is over 70 years old and he's been CBS' anchor for 24 years. How did he last this long? If the bean-counters have as much undue influence at the networks, as TV reporters like to complain, Rather should have been replaced when his ratings dropped to third, sometimes fourth behind Fox News, place. The problem for the executives may be that they don't have a choice of anyone who isn't as liberal as Rather is. Business considerations and the universal television rule, "Imitate what's successful," should have brought some Brit Hume or Bill O'Reilly clones by now. The fact that there aren't any is likely due to the fact that there aren't any real conservatives at the networks and that if the execs brought some in, they'd have a revolt on their hands from the whole news division. Fox can hire Alan Colmes and Greta Van Susteren, Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, but it doesn't work the other way. OK, there's John Stossel at ABC, but he wasn't an outspoken libertarian when he started, and he'll never get close to Peter Jennings' job.

The problem is not just that these news organizations don't hire for political diversity. They rely on journalism and communications schools and train their producers and reporters coming up that any variation from the liberal line is bad for your career. That's totally at odds with the idea of a free press, but you'll notice that most discussions of "journalistic ethics" today focuses on the "duty" of the press to "hold government accountable." That term, "accountable," only makes sense if you have some idea of what is and isn't expected of someone, and it seems clear now that the ones government is supposed to be accountable to are the media, not the people. Bush is far more accountable to the voters than he is to the press, which is why it hates him.

The First Amendment has been so interpreted by the courts and the media, as to imply that the press is a fourth Constitutional branch of government, in the mold of the courts themselves, unaccountable to anyone but itself. The press needs rethink that notion and remember that news is a business, not government, and that markets are far more exacting than courts are.

So the retirement into 60 Minutes II for Rather is not exactly the storming of the Bastille, but the masses are restless and the Democrats can't save old media, any more than they can save themselvesh.