(updated below w/transcript)

My guest today on Salon Radio is Matthew Yglesias of the Center for American Progress, whose blog is at CAP's Think Progress site. We discuss the various media/campaign issues about which he, Marc Ambinder and I exchanged several posts earlier in the week, and more broadly examine what are (and are not) effective tactics in combating the glaring and destructive deficiencies in the campaign coverage from the establishment media. We also discuss, in the context of the election, some of the themes from Matt's 2008 book -- Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats -- particularly whether the Obama campaign has been minimizing rather than highlighting foreign policy differences between Obama and the Republicans, and whether, in light of Sarah Palin's very hard-line view on a possible war with Russia as expressed yesterday, that is a smart or effective approach to take.

The discussion is roughly 30 minutes and can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below. As always, MP3s of every segment can be found here or can be subscribed to on ITunes using the link to the right. A transcript of today's segment will be posted shortly (it's here).

A few additional items to note: (1) Monday's guest will be Caroline Frederickson, the ACLU's Legislative Director, to discuss the virtual absence of debates relating to constitutional, civil liberties, executive power and rule of law issues in the presidential campaign, and the ACLU's new campaign to change that; (2) my guest for last Wednesday's show was Paul Kemp, the lead lawyer for accused anthrax attacker Bruce Ivins, regarding recent developments in the anthrax investigation. Some technical difficulties have prevented us from publishing the interview, though we hope to do so very soon. If you have some expertise in the Pamela Recording software or know someone who does, please email me; (3) the transcript from Monday's interview with Jeff Severns Guntzel of The Minnesota Independent, regarding the St. Paul protests and the resulting police action, is now posted here.

UPDATE: A transcript of the discussion with Yglesias is here. A highlight -- from our discussion on what can be done about atrocious campaign coverage and the responsible reporters:

YGLESIAS: It's something I'm trying to think through myself, is what really are effective tactics here? I'll say this, the evolution of my own thinking -- when I started blogging four or five, I guess six years ago now, I thought, as I think a lot of people thought, that if you just complained about the media coverage, and tried to make persuasive points about why things should be covered differently, and so on and so forth, that you might change things that way, that you might convince people that these were basically well-intentioned individuals where problems could be pointed out to them and you might get better work. A lot of people are like that in the world. I myself like to think that to some extent I'm open to criticism, and trying to do my job well.

And I've come to see that the people, the really big time reporters, aren't like that. I think that people who get into the campaign coverage business, and are well-intentioned, quickly find out that it's a rotten to the core enterprise, and wind up leaving, and the only people who make it to the top are, they're sociopaths of some kind. And I'm trying to understand what it is we can do as effective pressure points.

Is there anyone who disagrees with that?