I just surveyed mainstream press coverage of Hilary Rosen's resignation from the RIAA.  On the whole, AP, the New York Times, the BBC, and other outlets provided fair and balanced accounts of her departure and the effect of her tenure as head of the RIAA.  Any supportive comments are properly quoted and attributed to named sources.  A Reuters story from Los Angeles, however, lead with this outrageous statement of fact:  "Hilary Rosen, the articulate, tough chairwoman and chief executive officer of the Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry's top lobbying group, said on Wednesday she will step down by year-end." (Emphasis mine.)

Pardon me?  That's not a fact, that's an opinion, and a highly debatable one, too.  The category header above the story clearly reads "TOP ENTERTAINMENT NEWS."  Now I know that sports news no longer resembles anything like journalism, but has entertainment reporting gotten this bad already?  Assuming you can excuse Reuters -- an news organization that makes a lot of noise about its integrity, freedom, and independence -- for providing fluff entertainment coverage, the question remains:  Why was an entertainment reporter allowed to cover a real news story?

As a counterpoint to the glowing, mildly-if-at-all-critical coverage Rosen's departure has received thus far, allow me to offer a link to independent coverage of her appearance in October last year at the Oxford Union debate on free music.  Several hundred people in attendence looked on in stunned silence as Rosen stated plainly "no copy protected CDs have been released in the US." Given that US releases of copy-protected CDs had been widely covered in the press for months before the debate, one is at a loss to explain her statement.  Either she was telling a boldface lie, or she was uninformed to the point of incompetence.

Perhaps the editors and reporters employed by giant media corporations will look back fondly on Hilary Rosen's tenure, but many on my side of the Fair Use debate will remember her differently.

9:03:37 AM