Felt/Watergate Coverage

This passage in Rich's op-ed jumped out at me:

Such is the equivalently supine state of much of the news media today that Mr. Colson was repeatedly trotted out, without irony, to pass moral judgment on Mr. Felt - and not just on Fox News, the cable channel that is actually run by the former Nixon media maven, Roger Ailes. "I want kids to look up to heroes," Mr. Colson said, oh so sorrowfully, on NBC's "Today" show, condemning Mr. Felt for dishonoring "the confidence of the president of the United States." Never mind that Mr. Colson dishonored the law, proposed bombing the Brookings Institution and went to prison for his role in the break-in to steal the psychiatric records of The Times's Deep Throat on Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg. The "Today" host, Matt Lauer, didn't mention any of this - or even that his guest had done jail time. None of the other TV anchors who interviewed Mr. Colson - and he was ubiquitous - ever specified his criminal actions in the Nixon years. Some identified him onscreen only as a "former White House counsel."

I saw some snippets of quotes from guys like Colson and GGL on the news shows when the Felt story broke, and noticed that they always said "Former Nixon Aide" or the like, but always assumed that these shows would also identify them as being Nixon criminals as well... really, this is journalism 101, and the media isn't even willing to get that right! It really is a stark example of how the media is shirking its duty to democracy...