The other day I mentioned how Howard Fineman of Newsweek is outblogging the bloggers (although he found the Blackberry pictured at right, howyousay, sucked.)

This is just one way Big Media is facing down, co-opting, and moving to take over the new world of blogging.

Here's another. The American Press Institute notes that major media players, like The New York Times and Reuters, are getting serious about offering RSS feeds. This is actually a very good thing.

Unfortunately all these creative efforts by the people in the field to reach out, both to the new media and the new media's audience, are being squashed by the ad departments and the money men.

The moneymen are doing it by ignoring events like the Democratic Convention (and the ongoing war for that matter), either spinning it (by focusing away from keynoter Barack Obama to the brief remarks of candidate wife Teresa Heinz Kerry) or simply pre-empting the whole show with re-runs. (Check out Google News and try to find a transcript of Obama's keynote last night -- I dare ya.)

But it's the ad departments who are driving me crazy. RSS feeds are useless if they all lead behind firewalls or payboxes. Registration requirements are a firewall, and most newspapers (both in the U.S. and elsewhere) now require it. We're bringing up a Web of liars, people paranoid about privacy who just flat-out lie to the papers in order to get their news fix, as well as ignoramuses who don't take the time and, thus, don't get informed.

We need to know what both parties are thinking, not just their TV images but what their rank-and-file really think, because that determines where our country will go. Neither party is offering the story, reporters have grown too lazy to chase it, and ad men are too greedy to let people see it even if it's gotten.

The performance of the press -- all of it -- sickens me this week. Bloggers are bought-off with seats off the floor, most reporters refuse to try and get the story, and the owners of the enterprise don't let them print what's going on.

This should spell opportunity, for someone, a huge financial opportunity to target an untapped market that wants to know what's going on, what's behind it, and what's coming next.

I wonder who will seize that opportunity?