Bill Maher used the recent debacle with Brian Williams to take the corporate media to task for failing to do their jobs during his New Rules segment this Friday night.

Here's more from PoliticusUSA: Bill Maher Slams Brian Williams And The Rest Of The Lazy Corporate Media:

Bill Maher used the Brian Williams fiasco to call out the entire network news corporate media for not reporting the news. Maher suggested that they all should go away. [...]

There are many factors behind the de-newsing of the network news. When corporations bought television networks and decided that the news had to be a for profit venture, the coverage changed forever. Network newscasts became infotainment. Hard news stories have been avoided like the plague. Mainstream outlets also convinced themselves that the American people are conservatives who don’t want to be bothered with “liberal” issues. The mainstream media views climate change as a liberal issue, so out of fear of angering their Republican viewers, they give very little coverage to the story. [...]

For the lazy corporate media, the Brian Williams story is catnip. A celebrity is in the middle of an easy to understand scandal that is cheap to cover. Williams is a much of a reporter as NBC Nightly News is about the news. Both are not much of what they claim to be.

Maher was right. The lazy corporate media should go away. America would be a better-informed country without them.

The info-tainment industry has been dumbing down the American public for decades now and then when you add pure propaganda outlets like Fox to the mix, look out. And Maher didn't even begin to delve into one of their biggest sins, which was them lying us into the invasion of Iraq.

Here's the full transcript of his New Rules segment via ProgressiveLiberal at Kos:

Brian Williams shouldn't have to go away because he lied. He should have to go away because the NBC Nightly News sucks. And so does the CBS evening News with Scott Pelley and ABC News World Tonight.

Brian Williams’ lie about the helicopter? That didn’t destroy his credibility with me. Ten years of wasting precious news time on bullshit stories about car chases and bears in the swimming pool and store clerks fighting back and returning soldiers surprising their kids at the big game and Power Ball jackpots and stupid Spanish tomato fights. That’s what destroyed his credibility with me. …

I know what you are thinking. Who cares bill nobody watches broadcast news anyway. … No. Actually over nine million people watch Brian Williams every night, about twelve times more than CNN.

Delivering the news is a sacred responsibility. It is telling us the important things we need to know. It shouldn’t be a race to the bottom over who can attract more eyeballs with titillation. If it is let’s get it over and show porn in the last segment. …

And we are almost there. The new thing is just to show a Youtube clip that’s gone viral. It is like the news brought to you by your biggest stoner friend. …

You have twenty two minutes to bring us the world. How does that leave time for the four minute segment on the basset hound that found his way home?

Here is a crazy thought. Cut the story where the high school sweethearts reunite and get married at eighty and take an extra minute to link your endless weather stories to climate change. …

Last year the NBC Nightly News spent a total of 25 minutes all year on climate change, the most important issue of our time. This is journalistic malpractice. And it is why I never thought of Brian Williams as a reporter to begin with. Because every night it is the same thing on the news. A couple of minutes at the top for the big story of the day unless God forbid it’s going to snow. If it’s going to snow on the East Coast, you know, where they live, and then nothing else is happening in the entire world. …

This obsession with weather in the national news is especially bizarre because if there is one thing that isn’t national it is weather. Anyway after we get through with the weather report, and maybe some shots of whatever photo op the President arranged that day, it’s time for the medical segment which is usually on obesity and a great excuse to run endless footage of fat people whose faces we do not see. … And then they interview a doctor who says big fad leads to obesity. Thanks doc.

Then the twenty two minutes are almost up. It is time for everyone’s favorite part of the broadcast, the feel good human interest story because America, you’ve worked hard. You’ve had to sit through two, maybe three minutes of hard news. And you deserve a break. Something to make you feel ‘Gosh maybe the world isn’t so bad after all. ‘

Here is a story about a paraplegic climber who scaled a mountain, a latch key kid who ran a can food drive to cure cancer, the pitcher who won the big game to honor his dead twin brother, a hotel that welcomes guests with rescue puppies, a Minnesota high school basketball team on a winning streak, and old Black veteran who is blind but he still drives the school bus. Yes they are all great heartwarming stories. And there is a place for them. It is called Reader’s Digest.