Media's real power

Yesterday, I posted an excerpt from a personal essay that was very well written and urged *all* of you to follow the link to finish reading it. Today, I'm posting an excerpt from one of the best blog posts I've read about media in a very long time. Sometimes, media's real power stems from the information that is selectively withheld.

I’ve been thinking about his for a long time, but it got moved to the front of the stove after we had all that trouble getting people to understand that when we referred to Bill Maher outing Republican party chair Ken Mehlman on Larry King Live, it was’t “outing” as they understood it. Washington insiders knew that Mehlman’s gay. That wasn’t why Larry King briefly looked poleaxed when Bill Maher mentioned it. He was shocked because Maher was talking about it where hoi polloi like us could hear.

- Teresa Nielsen Hayden, "Why I Blog"