re: #2 Shinyhead

Doing good, watching some of the twitter stuff.
Amazing how much info is flying around. The MSM seems to be having a hard time dealing with it.

I would actually like to give some props to the MSM, oddly enough. They started slow, and most of them are torn between covering for the President they elected and the honest coverage of facts on the ground, BUT. The resources and frankly speaking clout that the big media organizations are indispensable in something like the situation in Iran. I’m using the weasel-word “situation” because this fact about the media is true from the point of view of either side, and they are at least lining up pretty well on the proper side.
What’s more, the people who are still there, and more to the point, those who are traveling into Iran at this stage, are to be commended for their courage and dedication.
The efforts of e-news sourced from all over and of big media usually run counter to each other, but in this case, they are complementary, which is right and good.
I find it difficult to fault those westerners in the media who have left. I agree with your point that the media is largely unable to cope with the tornado of information, but for the media, this is their version of war—there are no clear rules, and nobody is really in charge. Each organization must determine what their response to each cahnge in the situation will be, and in real-time. And with considerable risk to personnel, assets, and future opportunities for which they are responsible.
By and large, I would say that even with their structural inability to deal in an orderly fashion with the cascades of information, they are doing pretty well. I think that most of what is wrong with media coverage of developments in Iran is just a built-in part of the situation. This is, of course, a far brighter assessment than I would have issued a week ago.