I'd like to take time for this commercial break..

Remember, back in the 1940's and 50's lol, when television was hailed as primarily a tool for the 'education' of the public?  Well in those days, the newspapers and the schools took care of informing and educating the public about the major issues concerning their country.  After the War, and American prosperity skyrocketed, being the only superpower left who did not carry a hammer and sickle, American corporations relied heavily on the wildly popular television sets that were taking over radio as the primary medium through which to touch an impressionable audience.  Children more than ever were being targeted by the corporate genies, and housewives primarily, as novelty and convenience were pushed through American minds like a river through hydroelectric damns.  Well I've got a couple of links here that I'd like to share with you that gives you a little more background than maybe you were able to pick up watching re-runs of Popeye and Tom and Jerry cartoons.

The Century of the Self

This first youtube link documents the rise of the advertising firms ability to manipulate large pools of 'human resources' towards their ends using less than visible means.

Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent

This second documentary derives its vein of thought from the popular Noam Chomsky book Manufacturing Consent that follows the uneven, and tightly controlled, market of stories and ideas that our mainstream corporate media outlets take up and disseminate.  It is a fascinating weighting of current events that provides more than enough evidence towards the thesis that our American media heavily relies on the 'go-ahead' from higher-ups in the corporate/military/intelligence syndicates.

Operation Mockingbird Wiki

Finally I have here a wikipedia article discussing a coordinated attempt by the CIA to 'keep tabs' on our major journalists and news outlets, so as to ensure they shine a 'favorable light' upon all military and intelligence operations on domestic and foreign soil.  All that you have to do is watch the major news channels and witness the blatant self-censoring and misdirection taking place from behind, and sometimes in front, of the television news camera.  Once you've gotten a handle on this stuff, it becomes ever more obvious the more you watch, because the more you watch, and compare with some of the news stories running from other, online, news sources (Aljazeera, Alternet, BlacklistedNews, are some of the sites I frequent) you see there seems to be a problem with the information being broadcast due to a severe lack of depth in coverage, and obvious use of slight-of-hand misdirection.  My problem is not the substandard quality of information that we're getting, cause I can find better, but that it's deliberate.