http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/media/2009/05/26/trib-nice-dessert/ We Americans are a little schizoid when it comes to the media. Sometimes we love it (Watergate! The press saved the nation!); sometimes we hate it (the OJ trial!. The press is out of control!). But in the end, media matters. As Jefferson famously said, if he had a choice between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, he would opt for the later. We need the media to be our watchdog. We need it for information. We need it to entertain us and celebrate our accomplishments. Without the media—without the press—we would not function very well as a society. But we need the press to behave itself and to act responsibly. So we as the consumers of media should understand how it operates. We should have a sense of the people who provide us our news. We should know when they make mistakes. We should note their victories. We need to watch it closely. In these columns I hope to help us all with this task. — Barry Hillenbrand Sun, 19 May 2013 22:38:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/media/2009/05/26/trib-nice-dessert/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Shlomo Bachrach Tue, 26 May 2009 19:18:27 +0000 http://peacecorpsworldwide.org/media/?p=12#comment-2 Great column...but no surprise from an old hand! I have the same memories of the IHT, though I have a somewhat higher opinion than you do of the current version, which I read online these days in the US. Some of their original pieces are not bad. But with the suspense of the sports news gone, a lot of the excitement of finding an IHT is also gone. As recently as a few years ago, it was still available, a day or two late, at the Hilton in Addis. Great column…but no surprise from an old hand! I have the same memories of the IHT, though I have a somewhat higher opinion than you do of the current version, which I read online these days in the US. Some of their original pieces are not bad. But with the suspense of the sports news gone, a lot of the excitement of finding an IHT is also gone. As recently as a few years ago, it was still available, a day or two late, at the Hilton in Addis.

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