And when you look at what is happening to American journalism, you can see why magazines like The Progressive , far from being marginal, are more critical than ever. In the movie and book publishing ends of the infotainment industry, there is an increasing emphasis on the blockbuster. In Hollywood, it's the new Spielberg or the new Schwarzenegger that gets all the publicity, all the marketing, all the buzz, all the hype, all the advertising. In book publishing, it's more and more the new John Grisham, the new Danielle Steele, the brand-name writer, who gets all the advertising, all the marketing, all the publicity, all the buzz, all the hype. O.J. Simpson, the Dead Diana, Monica Lewinsky.
Short wars are also good.
If you miss some little gem of a film, some jewel of a novel, because you never even hear about it, that's tragic, truly tragic. But it's not likely to be dangerous for you. And the nation will become more inequitable. And our dream of liberty and justice for all will fade and die. To the extent that independent journalism exists at all today, it exists increasingly only in small, struggling publications like The Progressive , The Nation , and the Texas Observer .