On GRITtv our media roundtable looks at last week’s big stories. NBC fights to keep a lid on pirated videos coming out of Beijing. During the 2006 winter Olympics, there were only two hours of video online. This year NBC promises at least 2,200. Can the big media keep up and maintain its monopoly?

Here to discuss the sea change in media coverage are Rory O’Connor the author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio, Katie Halper, blogger and co-founder of Living Liberally, and Esther Armah co-host of “Wake Up Call” on WBAI Radio. They also take on the mainstream media’s refusal to cover John Edwards’ affair. Whose interest were they serving? And why did they wait so long? According to Armah the same story would have been handled much differently in the UK.

Halper says that the interest in Edwards has overshadowed McCain’s own philandering. When will the media take up that story and, more important, the hypocrisy of both men who have argued that the “sanctity” of marriage was a reason to deny gays and lesbians that very same right?

And the conflict in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. As Georgian troops are airlifted out of Iraq--they make up the third largest contingent of foreign forces fighting alongside the United States--Russia moves in on the strategic city of Gori and lobs bombs at the Tblisi airport. Thousands of civilians have died and the country seems on the verge of collapse. According to the media here, where everything is viewed through the prism of November, the war is said to be a national security test for the candidates. A virtual war game played out on foreign soil. It is less a national security test, however, than a stark reminder of how flawed US foreign policy has been since 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Listen to the full panel here.