(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)

Time Magazine has done a superb service for the country by illustrating everything that is rancid and corrupt with our political media. After I emailed Time.com Editor Josh Tyrangiel asking why the online version of Joe Klein's column remains online uncorrected given that -- as Managing Editor Rick Stengel now says -- the article contains a "reporting error," this is the "correction" Time has now posted to the article. Seriously -- this is really it, in its entirety:

In the original version of this story, Joe Klein wrote that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillance targets. Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don't.

Leave aside the false description of what Klein wrote. He didn't say "that the House Democratic version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would allow a court review of individual foreign surveillance targets." He said that their bill "would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court" and "would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans." But the Editor's false characterization of Klein's original lie about the House FISA bill is the least of the issues here.

All Time can say about this matter is that Republicans say one thing and Democrats claim another. Who is right? Is one side lying? What does the bill actually say, in reality?

That's not for Time to say. After all, they're journalists, not partisans. So they just write down what each side says. It's not for them to say what is true, even if one side is lying.

In this twisted view, that is called "balance" -- writing down what each side says. As in: "Hey - Bush officials say that there is WMD in Iraq and things are going great with the war (and a few people say otherwise). It's not for us to decide. It's not our fault if what we wrote down is a lie. We just wrote down exactly what they said." At best, they write down what each side says and then go home. That's what they're for.

That our typical establishment "journalist" conceives of this petty clerical task as their only role is not news. But it is striking to see the nation's "leading news magazine" so starkly describe how they perceive their role.

In reality, they don't even usually fulfill this clerical role fairly or well. After all, Klein's entire column presented only the lies from the Republicans about this bill as fact, and didn't even mention that there was another side (just as Time, in a lengthy article by the now-promoted Tyrangiel, presented only the Bush view to its readers about Saddam's scary stockpiles of WMD and didn't bother to mention that there was another side).

Here, there are not two sides; the bill could not be clearer. What Klein's GOP source (and Time) said about the bill is indisputably false. But that isn't for Time to say.

So to Time, Klein's so-called "reporting error" wasn't that he falsely described the bill. No; describing the bill accurately isn't the role of a journalist. Klein's only "reporting error" was that he only wrote down what one side said (the Republicans). He "forgot" to write down what the Democrats said. Now that the Editors noted in passing that the Democrats disagree, everything is fixed. Their job is done. That's what they just said about explicitly as it can be said. And they don't even realize that saying this is a profound indictment on what they do. They think that's what they're supposed to do.

I can't recall a recent incident that has shone as much bright light on the ugly, vapid, propagandistic practices of our national media. The more they speak, the more they reveal what they are.

UPDATE: Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner:

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

So few of them thought that was funny because they thought he was describing what they really are supposed to do -- what they do actually do -- and what is funny about that? Just compare Colbert's satirical description of the press to Time's claimed understanding of its function here.

UPDATE II: The recap of Klein's behavior, along with the reasons why there is no conceivable basis whatsoever for the fear-mongering claims that Klein and Time made about the crystal clear House Democratic FISA bill, is here (and here).

UPDATE III: Atrios satirizies Time's journalistic methods here. But as is true for Colbert's satire, it is really more of a literal description of how Time conducts itself than it is anything else.

It is worth underscoring that this entire episode began when Klein told Time's 4 million readers -- and Time actually claims an average issue audience of more than 20 million people -- that House Democrats were seeking to protect foreign Terrorists to the same extent as American citizens (and were therefore "well beyond stupid"). When it was demonstrated that Klein's statements were outright false, he said that a source told him this and "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right." Time's Editors now think that no correction to this false smear is needed beyond: "Republicans believe the bill can be interpreted that way, but Democrats don't." Read Atrios' post with that conduct in mind.

UPDATE IV: Jon Swift uses the Klein/Time scandal to review the 20 Basic Rules of Modern Journalism, which Swift encourages bloggers and others to review "so that they won't pester Joe Klein and other professional journalists too much about journalistic ethics in the future."