Salon's cover story today is a great piece by Andrew O'Hehir about the New York Times. If you want to understand how the paper shapes the entire press corps--even a deliberate outsider like Salon, who prides itself on staying well ahead of the Times on cultural issues, and nearly always does.

This paragraph and a half will give you a good idea:

Savvy as we may all think we are about the Times, and much as we may scrutinize and second-guess its perceived missteps, the decisions made by its editors dictate our agenda more than we would like to admit.

During Salon's daily conference call of desk editors, there is nearly always some discussion of the day's Times: How has the paper's coverage of Bush, or of Iraq, shifted recently? What books or movies were reviewed? What trends were spotted embarrassingly late -- or distressingly early? What stories has the Times covered that we've missed? And what stories do we need to jump on before the Gray Lady airs them out?

Now extrapolate like crazy for the more traditional media outlets.

But that's not what provoked me to write. It was the half paragraph immediately preceding that little excerpt:

Every morning's edition of the Times defines what the terms of discourse will be on that day for the political, intellectual and media elites of the United States. Like almost everyone else I know, I read the Times first thing in the morning, and I did so long before I moved to New York.

Gave me the shivers. Litearlly, I shivered. And praised God that much as I admire Andrew's writing, I'm not someone he knows. And that I haven't moved to NY yet. And that when I do, I'll continue not reading the NYT first thing every morning. Nor later in the day, outside the Sunday Arts, section, the magazine, and an occasional glance at the regular paper.

Aside from the incredibly bad writing--bland, dull, uninspired, lack of storytelling skills--why in the hell would I want to be stamped into the same damn thought-mold as everyone in the--what was it? "political, intellectual and media elites"?

God. How about an intellectual discussion with ideas bouncing in from all over the map?

I reached out of bed and began my morning with a couple pages from Black Hawk Down today. Last week I was finishing off The Perfect Storm. Yes, I'm on a narrative nonfiction run. I'm writing a nonfiction book that will read like a novel, so I'm gobbling up a bunch of those. Figured I'd include a couple that had made a mark on the national psyche the past couple years. Before that, it was Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman. Not so many newspapers or magazines in between.

I still follow pop culture stories religiously--as well as consuming plenty of pop culture directly--gulp down a steady stream of Slate and Salon stories, and click on the more interesting AP stories from Salon's newswire. So I have a pretty good idea of the big events unfolding in the world, but I'm mostly hanging out in a whole different universe of ideas than the daily myopia of the daily news grind.

I'm certainly not suggesting everyone bury themselves in book-length narrative nonfiction for the next six months. But I am suggesting that at least three-quarters of the media and/or intellectual elite ought to be burying themselves in different things every morning. And I'm sure most of them are reading additional things, but how about a good chunk of them actually avoiding indoctrinating themselves with the same freaking thing?

No wonder I shake my head and wonder what world some of these pundits are living in when they spout so much of their nonsense on those blasted "news" shows I still stumble into from time to time.

They're constantly chastising one another for being lost inside the beltway--here's an idea: Try leaving it once in awhile! Intellectually, as well as geographically.

If you're all reading the same damn thing every morning--and then following up with a bunch of news sources falling somewhat into step with that same agenda--good God, what do you think you're all likely to produce? Why do you think we're all so sick of reading it?