During the Super Bowl, when Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald made a key play, NBC's cameras caught his father in the press booth, working the game for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. Papa Fitzgerald acted remarkably stoically to his son's on-the-field wizardry and Al Michaels quipped, (and I'm paraphrasing), "No cheering from the pressbox--that's the sign of a true journalist."

I don't know if anybody else interpreted it the same way, but to me, that was was a short sharp rebuke to just about everybody in NBC's news department in 2008.

But when old media wasn't overtly cheering, they kept rockin' in 2008, as one of Glenn Reynolds' readers notes:

What Katrina taught the media was that they could hurt Bush by lying. What 2008 taught them was that they could help Obama by not reporting at all. What will 2009 teach them? I shudder to think.

John Hinderaker adds:

A basic reality of our time is that our mass media are monolithic, and what they choose to report (or not report) depends on what fits the narrative they are pushing on the public. If our reporters and editors wanted to portray Obama as clueless and out of touch with ordinary Americans, he has given them ample opportunity to do so. But because they are Democrats and he is a Democrat, they have no desire to tell that story. So "let them eat steak" is not a theme you'll be seeing on the evening news.

Update: "Sometimes the mask slips." And, as happens very occasionally, more than one mask slips.