JAY ROSEN OFFERS “A Stark Message for the Legacy Media.”

In related news, U.S. Air has filed for bankruptcy. (And yes, it is related.)

Meanwhile, Carroll Morse offers further lessons:

CBS has set itself up for special scorn in this matter. The blogosphere’s complaint is not just that they may be pursuing an anti-Bush agenda, the complaint is that they have abandoned basic reporting — the core function of their organization — in an attempt to manipulate the agenda. Reasonable and answerable questions, including provenance of the documents, the precise qualifications of their experts, and the criteria used to establish authenticity have gone unreported, have been sluggishly reported, or have been sloppily reported and debunked in just a few hours.

Ultimately, CBS fundamentally altered the nature of the editorial trade-off. Instead grudgingly adjusting the level of reported detail out of economic necessity, they willingly sacrificed the quality of their reporting in their attempt to manipulate the agenda.

Read the whole thing.