Robert Kennedy Jr. blasted everyone from polluters to politicians to the press today during a speech today at the American Magazine Conference in Phoenix that was, by his own admission, a long, rambling, passionate digression.

"We have a negligent press in this country," Kennedy Jr. said, one that has "let the American people down" by not covering what he called the "worst environmental White House we've ever had in history, bar none."

Kennedy Jr. spoke without notes and, it seemed, without taking a breath — his voice often cracking during a spirituality-tinged monologue you might hear on a platform waiting for the F train.

Kennedy Jr. said that media consolidation that began in the Reagan administration has devolved to a state where news divisions are "corporate profit centers." And he blamed the press for not getting the story of corrupt polluters out there, instead pandering to the "reptillian part of our brains."

"We know more about Tom and Katie than we do about global warming," Kennedy Jr. said. "We're the most entertained, least informed people in the world."

FishbowlNY will be blogging live this week from the American Magazine Conference — the annual pow-wow of high-powered magazine executives — at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix. Check back often for our extended coverage.

FishbowlNY's AMC 2006 Coverage: