One of the most important trials of the decade is unfolding just outside of Washington, D.C. at Ft. Meade, MD: the court martial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning for allegedly disclosing information to Wikileaks.

Typically, the only reporters consistently attending and covering the dramatic pre-trial proceedings have been far outside the MSM. Alexa O'Brien, Kevin Gosztola, and Nathan Fuller have provided excellent and critically important coverage of Manning's secretive pre-trial proceedings, but major national newspapers have afforded the hearings limited summary attention at best. Now that Manning has been testifying about his abhorrent pre-trial confinement conditions, some in the MSM have woken up, but only to do brief stories that usually rely heavily on the Associate Press reports rather than doing their own independent nvestigating.

The MSM reports tend to sanitize Manning's treatment in pre-trial confinement conditions, and do little to explain what it means to be kept in a cell 23 hours a day, only being allowed out for 20 minutes of "sunshine time" during which guards would escort a shackled Manning around an exercise yard.

When the MSM describes "pre-trial detention," substitute "solitary confinement." Manning--an American citizen yet to be tried or convicted of any crimes--was held in his cell, sometimes naked, for 23 hours a day despite the fact that all of his psychologists (plural) believed the confinement conditions to be totally unnecessary and actually detrimental to Manning's mental and physical health.