] Imagine this: The FBI nails a couple of major terrorism
] suspects, in possession of a weapon of mass destruction
] -- a sodium cyanide bomb -- as well as about 100 other
] bombs, bomb components, machine guns, chemical agents,
] and 500,000 rounds of ammunition. Additionally, they find
] documents detailing an apparent scheme to actually use
] these weapons, some indicating other suspects might still
] be at large. And to top it all off, the suspects plead
] guilty.
]
] Big story, right? Huge, right?
 . . .
] Not one press conference. Just a
] quietly issued press release. If that defies explanation,
] some Ashcroft critics think they have one: The suspects
] were named William J. Krar and Judith L. Bruey, not
] Mohammed or Omar or Khalid. They aren't Muslims, but
] alleged white supremacists. And they were caught right
] here in Texas.
]
] Without the DOJ bringing the Krar case to national
] attention, the media silence has been deafening.

I have to admit, that I find it enormously frustrating to see which stories get big press and which ones don't. Thank god for Google News and the blogosphere, so I can choose for myself which stories I want to follow. But even with those freely available sources to the internet-literate, I still constantly run into friends and family who will say, "Blaster? Tuwaitha? I never heard about those on CNN. It must be a media conspiracy!"

Personally, I don't see it as a conspiracy so much as hard choices that have to be made by news organizations about which stories to list in a short timeslot, to an audience who only give themselves a half-hour a day to "catch up on the news" (if that much).

After September 11th, I remember being vaguely aware that there were some huge stories going on elsewhere in the world -- stories that normally would have resulted in hours of coverage, but in the wake of September 11th were only mentioned briefly in the headline ticker at the bottom of the screen.

In "interesting times", big stories get lost. :/