From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

You may have heard President Reagan is dead.

CNN had sad music for the occasion.

So did the Fox News Channel, as did MSNBC.

Even the death of another American icon was viewed through gipper-colored glasses. Ronald Reagan was also, we've learned, a big fan of Ray Charles.

In fact, in January 1985, Ray Charles was the featured entertainer at President

Reagan's second inauguration. Maybe as some members of Congress have proposed, Reagan does belong

on Mount Rushmore, or the $10 bill. He was a towering 20th century figure. But the mournful tributes were rife with inaccuracies.

Reagan's unequaled popularity was chanted like a mantra,

despite a heap of polls that prove otherwise.

It was deemed a breach of taste to recall the scandals of his presidency in the midst of mourning.

Okay, maybe it was too early for a trip down bad memory lane.

But how about the news that got away?

There is other news like the reality of Iraq, said Dan Rather, in a Knight Ritter story on Tuesday.

It got very short shrift this weekend.

And we might add, not much more in the week that

followed. For instance, the most important chapter in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal opened this

week with reports about a Bush administration policy memo sanctioning an unspecified degree of

torture in the war on terror, contrary to the Geneva Convention.

But Attorney General John Ashcroft told Congress he would not release the memo.

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