Come on, it's the weekend. You have the time to read this entire piece:

Soon enough, a senior Pentagon official joins the round. I cherish the opportunity to ask him a couple of — admittedly critical and inquisitive — questions.

Puzzled, he replies: “Why are you asking all these questions? Aren’t journalists just supposed to report the facts?”

Welcome to the modern world of Washington media. And if you believe that the attitude of this Bush official is not characteristic of his administration’s handling of the media, then you are in for a real surprise.

For what is truly shocking about the state of the U.S. media today is that, to an amazing extent, the belief to restrict themselves to the facts — as they are provided by the government — is willingly accepted by the mainstream U.S. media.

So far, so good — or bad. But your faith in the independence of the U.S. media really takes a hard hit when, on another occasion, you sit next to a prominent White House correspondent who is answering a call on his cell phone. A senior White House official is on the line, as he is happy to indicate.

Predictably enough, the policymaker was keen on re-spinning the next day's front-page story — but was doing so in all too transparent a manner.

The shock came upon getting the paper in question the next morning — and seeing how this well-respected reporter had fallen for the spin. Lock, stock and barrel.

That’s when you begin to wonder whether the political reporters of major U.S. papers really see it as their job to provide truly independent news and analysis — or are all eager to act as undercover government spokesmen.

Increasingly, it looks as though they are all too pliable in order to preserve top-level access.

Too harsh a judgment? Hardly. After all, one needs to factor in that many U.S. journalists’ self-perception of their professional courage is sky-high.

But instead of printing all the news that's fit to print, they waffle on printing news that would give those in power the fits.

What gives me further reason to pause is to hear our real White House correspondent — the one who let himself be spun like wool — intone in a panel discussion the next day about the importance of the independent media as the "fourth estate."

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