Norman Solomon uses his most recent Creators Syndicate column (6/19/09) to call for journalism that "is open scrutiny of the dynamics of power. Reporters should shine a bright light on behind-the-scenes maneuvers that block congressional oversight of administration policies":

Last Tuesday, when the House of Representatives approved a supplemental spending bill for more war in Iraq and Afghanistan, there must have been celebration at the White House. Days of intense arm-twisting paid off.

The Obama administration had brandished the weapon of retribution against the newest Democratic arrivals in the House. Most news coverage seemed oblivious, but not all. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported just hours before the war-funding measure came to the floor, "the White House has threatened to pull support from Democratic freshmen who vote no."

Even though "journalists expect strong-arm tactics to come from the White House and may actually view them as evidence of the effective use of presidential power," Solomon maintains that "huge concentrations of power are hazardous to democracy": "We may shrug and say words to the effect of 'that's the way things are'--but the fact remains that we need journalism to scrutinize 'the way things are.'"

However, Solomon has several examples--from media failure "to scrutinize the Gulf of Tonkin incident" on up to "adulatory news coverage" of "drastically loosened" financial regulation in the '90s--that demonstrate how, "unfortunately, too many journalists behave as though levers pulled by the powerful are not notable enough to be questioned."

Looking beyond "the yellow-tape segments that bleed and lead local TV news" Norman Solomon (Creators Syndicate, 6/13/09) discerns what he dubs "Media's Love/Hate Affair with Violence"--as exemplified by

the kind of violence--rarely occurring in the light of day--that gets scant media attention. With somewhere around 2 million people behind bars in the United States, all kinds of violent acts are happening in the nation's prisons and jails. The violence that some guards inflict on prisoners is even less apt to make the news than what stressed-out prisoners do to one another.

Various forms of what could be called "institutionalized violence" are not identified as such in the standard reportorial lexicons. When children go to bed hungry--or when people can't see a doctor and then wind up in emergency rooms with serious medical conditions that could have been prevented with earlier healthcare--some very cruel hotwired violence is underway. But from a boilerplate media standpoint, it's part of the regular social order.

And that's all aside from journalistic adoration of "the U.S. war-fighting establishment--what outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower called the 'military-industrial complex.'" Solomon concludes: "In short, according to tacit judgments that dominate the media establishment, reprehensible violence doesn't include the violence that goes unrebuked by prevailing authority structures in our society."