A call for new media

Donald Rumsfeld has a piece in the WSJ (Link requires subscription) which strikes me as a slap at the MSM, without specifically mentioning them. The key is in the problems he lists. He says that government offiicials need to find a way to communicate with the public both at home and abroad.

If the media in this country were doing its job as it claims to be, there would be no need for this. The problem is that they see nothing wrong with misleading the public in matters such as the current Nadagate faux scandal and the progress in Iraq, etc. They have funneled and filtered what's going on to give us a lopsidedly negative view of everything government does, including push polling, setting up public officials with misquotes or partial quotes which change the original meaning. They keep talking about journalistic ethics without paying attention to the universal ethics of honesty, fairness and respect for other views. I don't know when the press decided that it had the right to withhold or distort information it presents to the public, but it has now gone too far.