A lot of media news came down this weekend while I was out of town. Here’s a round-up of essential items:

● Via Michelle Malkin, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Ron Harris has done a thorough investigation of antiwar Iraq vet Jimmy Massey, who has been telling every journalist and antiwar protest crowd he can find that he witnessed U.S. marines committing atrocities in Iraq. He’s written a book about his experiences which was recently published in France. According to Harris, who was embedded with Massey’s unit, Massey’s stories are all uncorroborated fictions. In this sidebar, Harris explores why the media bought Massey’s story.

● Jack Shafer on the New York Times “because we said so” style of editorial writing:

Back when Jack Rosenthal ran the New York Times editorial page (1986-1992), he barred his editorialists from using the words “should” and “must.” As he explained to George magazine’s Timothy Noah in 1999, the two imperial directives tended to produce weak editorials that argued by assertion, and he preferred persuasive editorials supported by logic… [snip]
…today it’s a rare week that the Times doesn’t issue several should-and-must proclamations. But the Times isn’t the only offender. A data dump from this week reveals egregious should-and-musting on the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and Chicago Tribune editorial pages.

● Howard Kurtz writes that Big Media needs a Prozac. Why? Any of the following reasons:

1. Newspaper circulation woes and stiff competition with Web companies for ad dollars have led people like CNBC money expert and mad-hatter Jim Cramer declared, “[Daily newspapers are] dead… Kids are never going to get papers. It