BlackRock emerged as one of their principal advisers as the agencies bailed out major companies and tried to put a price on their toxic assets. BlackRock is also managing tens of billions of dollars worth of AIG assets for the government. In August, officials selected the company to help arrange the purchase, partly using taxpayer money, of toxic assets from banks. Although BlackRock, which avoided the plague of toxic assets, has turned to Washington by choice, some firms have been forced to Washington.

Schwarz's response can hardly contain his excitement:

Impressive! Impressive work there by BlackRock! Let's stroll over to BlackRock's own website, so we can find out who owns them and extend our congratulations:

Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation, and The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. own approximately...47.4 percent and 31.5 percent of BlackRock’s capital stock...

Whoops!

Bailout Recipients

Bank of America $45.0 billion
Bank of America, NA $6.0 billion
PNC Financial Services $7.6 billion

But Schwarz really feels "there's no need for the Washington Post to report on what's going on in this universe," since "it would only upset and confuse their readers."

Reacting to the crass appeal for a California Bay Area underwriter, Caruso reminds the broadcasters: "C'mon, guys, we're sitting right here. Can't you at least do us the courtesy of being subtle about the fact that as far as you're concerned, we're nothing but pairs of eyes for corporate sponsors?"

Citing 15-year-old FAIR warnings of the hazards of such "enhanced underwriting," Caruso also remembers

a day not that long ago when PBS's purpose was to provide, you know, broadcasting services for the public. Now that they're just selling audiences to advertisers like the rest of the corporate media, they really should change the name—though I suppose "Supplier of Prime Demographic Groups to Underwriters through Multiple Platforms" doesn't quite have the same ring (and SPDGUMP doesn't exactly roll off the tongue either).

Caruso even has a suggested rewrite of their longtime "standard sponsorship message as well": "This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from Upwardly Mobile Middle Class Consumers Like You. Thank You! But seriously, we're just as happy getting our money from ExxonMobil."

• Should a Connecticut trader receive $100 million in executive pay from a bank that would be dead had it not received $45 billion in taxpayer money? Apparently, the guy's genius was to drive up the price of gas to $4 a gallon. Does he deserve 100 million bucks from you for that?
• Should unemployment benefits be extended for 1.5 million jobless Americans who will otherwise run out of money by the end of the year and fall into destitution and, sometimes, homelessness?

Chazelle notes that "the New York Times features both stories on its front page, but never connects the two" --their job "explaining the complexity of the issue" encapsulated by him as, "If the trader fails to be paid, it'll get truly ugly: The guy will go trade somewhere else!"

"On the other hand," writes Chazelle, "if mom and dad don't get their unemployment benefits, things are not quite nearly as bad: Only their kids will die." Leading him to sarcastically exclaim, "Thank god I am not in government having to make tough choices like that!"

Read the FAIR magazine Extra!: "The Recession and the 'Deserving Poor': Poverty Finally on Media Radar—but Only When It Hits the Middle Class" (3/09) by Neil deMause.

The public is bombarded with carefully crafted images meant to confuse propaganda with ideology and knowledge with how we feel. Human rights and labor groups, investigative journalists, consumer watchdog organizations and advocacy agencies have, in the face of this manipulation, inundated the public sphere with reports and facts. But facts alone...make little difference. And as we search for alternative ways to communicate in a time of crisis, we must also communicate in new forms... This style, one that turns the abstraction of fact into a human flesh and one that is not afraid of emotion and passion...will permit us to counter the force of corporate propaganda....

We will have to descend into the world of the forgotten, to write, photograph, paint, sing, act, blog, video and film with anger and honesty that have been blunted by the parameters of traditional journalism. The lines between artists, social activists and journalists have to be erased.

Despite their great efforts, Schwarz feels ANP still are "suffering from exactly the problem Hedges describes. To start with, what is the Fed? How does it work? Perhaps 900 people total in the U.S. could tell you. So for everyone else it's automatically like gossip about strangers--i.e., extremely boring."