RIP David Halberstam

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Killed in a traffic accident here in the Bay Area. Mr. Halberstam was the role model for what a thinking journalist should be. He will be missed.

From Glen Greenwald today;

David Halberstam's death yesterday is certain to prompt all sorts of homage from our media stars describing Halberstam as a superior journalist, someone who embodied what journalism ought to be. And it is true that he was exactly that.

But modern American journalists -- as Halberstam himself repeatedly emphasized -- have become the precise antithesis of those values. The functions Halberstam and the best journalists of his generation fulfilled are exactly those that have been so fundamentally abandoned, repudiated and scorned by our nation's most prominent and influential media stars. And most legitimate media criticisms today are grounded in exactly that gaping discrepancy.

Read the rest here.

Then set your TIVO to watch this Bill Moyers PBS special on how our mainstream media failed in it's duty leading up to the war in Iraq.

-UF