• by Tom Siebert , Op-Ed Contributor, November 24, 2006

Is anybody out there? The day after Thanksgiving, caught pleasantly between the turkey and the football and the shopping, mingling the simple pleasures of family and friends and food. (Or, conversely, suffering through the miseries of dysfunction, loneliness and gluttony.) Hopefully, most of you are away from your computers today.

But the official launch of the holiday season--hey, it really starts for me around Thanksgiving, I'm not buying into this "day after Halloween" crap--has me feeling cheerier and moderately thankful, professionally. The country's collective consciousness appears to be increasingly dubious of the mechanizations of the mainstream media machine. In the last week, we actually found out that the lowest common denominator isn't quite as low as some people thought.

Anybody who's got even the slightest bit of faith left in America had to feel pretty good about the zeitgeist train wreck that took place at Fox Television last week. That's when the bottom of the barrel rose a little bit and parent company News Corp. killed its sign-of-the-apocalypse ratings stunt, featuring that ex-football hero who was found innocent of killing his wife and her friend--but would gladly pretend that he'd killed them, just for entertainment value and a $3 million paycheck.

After a week's worth of relentless negative news coverage that managed to push the latest alarming allegations about the White House's plans to attack Iran; the goals of the new Democratic Congress; the President's tone-deaf trip to Vietnam; and other big stories off the public's radar--News Corp.'s Big Dog Rupert Murdoch stepped up and killed the stunt faster than O.J. killed his wife. (If he did it, of course.) My personal favorite moment of the whole affair was CNBC playing John Williams "Darth Vader Theme" over footage of Murdoch.

It was a tough week overall for the Fox brand.

The turn to O.J. during sweeps month brought coverage about how lousy Fox Television network is doing this season. Somebody also leaked a memo from a Fox News senior vice president that's the latest nail in the coffin of its laughable "fair and balanced" claim. But worst, and most hypocritical, were suggestions that Fox was at least partially involved in paying $2 million to terrorists for the release of two kidnapped Fox reporters being held hostage--a claim made by the World News Daily Web site, which is arguably even farther to the right than Fox News.

In case you've got some time this weekend, here are a few other stories that didn't get much play last week, but probably should have: A list of campaign expenses invested in bloggers. Think all those pro-Hillary comments you were reading online were from genuine fans doing it for free? Nope. Her campaign spent more on bloggers than anybody else--more than $75K. I bet Bill could've gotten the interns to do it. The federal government has decided not to standardize autopsies of rescue workers from the World Trade Center that might document a link between toxic air and their ill health, following the attack and their subsequent deaths. They say the data could be misinterpreted.

It's not as sexy as Judy Miller or The New York Times, but blogger Josh Wolf has been in jail since September because he refuses to give up an unedited video he filmed at a San Francisco protest last year. In the video, a police car is burned. Wolf says he didn't film that portion.

Incidentally, I'm thankful I can tell you about stuff like this and not worry about somebody coming to my house in the middle of the night and taking me away.