GITLIN ON THE MEDIA: Jonathan V. Last of the "Weekly Standard" has a book review of Todd Gitlin's "Media Unlimited." Last says Gitlin missed an insidious media manifestation - The Crawl.

If there is a single symbol of media overkill, it's the crawl. Resurrected in the first hours of Sept. 11, the crawl was originally meant to get critical information out to TV viewers while major events were unfolding on camera. Six months later, the cable-news networks still use the crawl, 24 hours a day, to tell us things like (no kidding) "U.S. mint in Philadelphia to shut down for a month" or "Internet usage down, study says." The crawl is so insipid that it makes the on-air talent look profound.

Last is generally positive about Gitlin's book, which deals with media saturation. But returning to The Crawl, he raises an interesting objection:

However, if there is a problem with the media torrent, it may be more serious than even Gitlin lets on. In "Shows About Nothing" (2000), Thomas Hibbs put forth the proposition that American popular culture undermines democracy by fostering a soft, comfortable nihilism. Far from endorsing the wrong ideals, Hibbs believed, popular culture makes the whole idea of right and wrong seem ridiculous. Meanwhile, the high decibel level and nonstop message-sending of modern media culture have a leveling effect, too, implying that no one event is more important than another. The banality of the crawl is thus the banality of journalistic nihilism. The closing of the U.S. mint? The discovery of anthrax? Monica's latest escapade? We don't know what's news and what's entertainment, what's right and what's wrong. Gitlin worries that we are goaded too much to buy things. It might be worse, and perhaps it is.