Listening to his interview with Laura Ingraham and his fear of Rush Limbaugh, Tom Brokaw clearly has issues with the new media world:

This morning on Laura Ingraham's radio show, she talked to former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw. Brokaw's got a new book, and she says to him, "You mentioned Rush Limbaugh in the book, but you kind of throw away a line about Limbaugh, and it's in the drug section. And without a doubt, Rush Limbaugh's the most influential Boomer I think in the media today. There's no person who has had more of a profound impact on the way people think about politics than Limbaugh, and he gets a line, you know, the drug thing, which I just don't think that's right, Tom.

BROKAW: My problem with the whole spectrum is that there is not -- you know, you know what Rush is -- what his whole drill is, he doesn't want to hear another point of view, except his.

INGRAHAM: Oh, I disagree. He talks to all sorts of people. Well, he doesn't interview people like I do. I mean, I have guests on--

BROKAW: He doesn't -- he doesn't interview people, and he mocks people--

INGRAHAM: But he's not an objective -- he's not an objective person, he doesn't say he is, and that's the difference between him and anchors on some of our networks who have political agenda but then pretend that they're objective.

BROKAW: Well, Laura, we're never going to resolve this. You know, you have your point of view, and I have mine.

(Audio here.)

And Tom does have his point of view, as does the nightly news. Post-9/11, the more perceptive members of the legacy media have gone on the record to discuss their biases (even Tom inadvertently triangulated himself earlier this month); and numerous journalists have written articles explaining why a completely unbiased media is an impossibility, but an arguably necessary fiction to maintain in the early days of radio and TV, back when broadcast frequencies were scarce. (Humbly submitted for your approval...) Someone should alert Tom that that's no longer the case in the 21st century, as anybody who's glanced at the channel line-up of his DirecTV or XM satellite radio receiver has seen--or simply surfed a handful of the 100 million-plus blogs tracked by Technorati.

More: Tim Graham of Newsbusters adds:

This is rich talk coming from a man whose network hired Bill Moyers as his newscast’s only commentator in 1995, and a man who wrote a syrupy tribute to hot liberal mock-jock Jon Stewart for his "Athenian" ideals in Time magazine.

Not to mention someone who was upset in 2003 with Eason Jordan, then chief news executive of CNN. Brokaw had no beef with CNN broadcasting out of Iraq for years little more than propaganda approved by Saddam Hussein. No, he was angry that Jordan finally disclosed the sham after Iraq was liberated. As Brokaw said at the time:

On Tuesday's Late Show, Brokaw told David Letterman that CNN “should have worked harder at conveying” what Jordan knew, but that if you “decide to keep that as a secret for yourself to protect those people and to protect the interests of your company, then you probably ought to keep it secret for a long time because it opens them up now, wherever they go, wherever they're stationed, 'well what are they not telling us now?'”

And heaven forbid the public ask that.

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