Dear FRONTLINE,

At the end of News Wars Part I, you attempt to reduce the Plame affair to the status of "this is way things are always done in Washington". A lot of reporters and a lot of government officials would go to jail if this sort of thing were prosecuted. If so, you should provide other examples. Did those case involve taking the nation to war, the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, the spending of billions of dollars? If so, perhaps the bigger issue you should be investigating is the kind of governmental dishonesty and corruption of public ethics which you suggest is pervasive. The fact that no charges were brought in the Plame affair was most likely the result of the difficulty of legally proving intent. This legal fact should not detract from exposing high officials who attempt to silence criticism, especially by manipulating the press. That is the real story.

Tom Kara
Norwood, Missouri

Dear FRONTLINE,

Until 2001, I had valued the first amendment above all others. The certainty that a free press was the strongest break on executive excess and the tendancy toward tyranny in the affairs of men, was a source of comfort.

No more. I now see that the press was vulnerable all along to ultimate optimate capture. You can threaten it's life's blood - it's advertisers. You can beat it down and whip it by constant assertion of bias that ultimately erodes objectivity. You can, if all else fails, simply buy it. We are lost. If not today, then someday. We are lost.

Charles Barrett
Fresno, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I view the recent dissension of a few reporters the same way I view rebellious children lashing out at their parents. I think the media and the government have a very cozy relationship. The media is a tool of the government and the Judith Millers of the world have done little to convince me otherwise.

Brooklyn, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

Good work to Frontline and the people and organizations that fund programs like it. Consider how this revolution in media may be also be the great rorshasch test of our generation. People have limitless media and views to that which they already believe.

Jeff Shafer
South Bend , Indiana

Dear FRONTLINE,

One reporter that I heard, and I cannont remember his name said, "It used to be that the reporters came from the other side of the tracks, they looked on politicians with scorn. Now they all send their kids to the same private school". To me that says it all.

Howard Gibbs
Jacksonville, Ar

FRONTLINE's editors respond:

See the interviews section of this site and the topic section dealing with the press's self-inflcted problems