By Jonathan COOK
When the establishment media deals with issues in which the West's war industries are most heavily invested, it happily jettisons even the semblance of critical distance from the state
It's easy to forget that the western media - the so-called "free press" - likes to distinguish itself from media in authoritarian regimes on the basis that, unlike them, it asks critical questions of the powerful, reports facts objectively, and formulates its analyses dispassionately.