Writes Geov Parrish for WorkingForChange.com:
Downing Street Memo.
More below, with my fond critique of a WaPo column, “The Illuminating Experience of Being Kept in the Dark”:
Howie Martin sent me the Geov Parrish three-word one-liner via Smirking Chimp. Parrish continues:
That’s exactly what the Downing Street Memo, first reported a month ago by the Times of London, proves. …
And, from the WaPo column yesterday, “The Illuminating Experience of Being Kept in the Dark,” by Hank Stuever — so wonderfully written, it should be read in full just for the writing:
What’s gone is the last best secret, wrested from the grip of the select few who’d vowed to keep it. The hiding of Deep Throat’s identity took on a larger mythic status than any scoop Deep Throat provided, and much of Washington — media, officialdom, even tourists who snapped the Watergate complex — guarded the almost holy belief in Deep Throat. He was the perfect, nameless god. It was the idea that reporters (and their background sources) could save the world, and that trust was still trust, and truth was still true. People now go to parking garages to get their cars. …
“What’s gone is the last best secret …”
I respectfully disagree, Mr. Stuever.
That particular secret became mythical the longer it lasted. A movie, books, countless articles, endless theories and, most of all, time has added to its potency, just like the wine Mr. Felt is allowed to drink with dinner.
We have before us the unveiling of, I think, far more serious secrets, but the media barely tips its hat as it waltzes on by.
Amen to that Susan. We have within our grasp the opportunity to unveil the secrets of The Bush Crime family if only we can find the right “real” journalist that has the integrity and the courage to dig deep and tell the truth about these criminals. It’s all right there in front of them. Someone please step up to the plate. Paging Mr. Whistleblower, your table is ready.
Kinda long for a post, but what the heck. And do you agree with his list? Who would you add or subtract?
When I point out problems with today’s national press corps, I always try to let it be known that there are still some good reporters out there. And after my American Prospect piece today, some folks have asked me which journalists I read and trust. So in the interest of being “fair and balanced,” I figured I would follow up my media criticism with a list of some journalists I think are actually doing a terrific job.
Remember, this is a list of reporters, not opinion writers, and in no special order. They are the people/publications I stop to regularly read not because they agree with my political perspective (many of them don’t), but because they cover the serious issues:
– Knight Ridder’s Washington, D.C. Bureau: no news organization come close to the kind of serious reporting these guys do on the most important issues.
– Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker: No matter what criticism he gets, he still breaks real stories.
– David Cay Johnston, New York Times: The best tax reporter in America. Period.
– Daniel Gross, Slate: Always has the incisive take on the days economic news that other reporters miss.
– Bill Moyers/PBS Frontline crew: This one doesn’t need an explanation.
– Ellen Schultz, Wall Street Journal: The best reporter in America when it comes to the unglamourous yet critical task of covering retirement/pension issues.
– Matt Taibbi, New York Press/Rolling Stone; Frank Rich, New York Times; James Wolcott, Vanity Fair: These are the few big journalists willing to write honestly about how big of a joke the national media has become.
– Tom Edsall, Washington Post: One of the few who actually takes reporting on the connection between money and politics seriously, and doesn’t treat it like a punchline.
– Dana Milbank, Washington Post: Where other reporters cower, he has never, ever been afraid to challenge the White House.
– Connie Schultz, Cleveland Plain Dealer: She won a Pulitzer Prize for taking on the powers that be. Enough said.
– David Rogers, Wall Street Journal; Dan Morgan, Washington Post: These guys are among the last to do the kind of hardscrabble reporting on Capitol Hill politics that gives people a glimpse into what really goes on in Congress.
– Businessweek Magazine: People who need accurate information-based news in order to make a living aren’t interested in what’s on the President’s Ipod, and they aren’t interested in self-important punditry. Businessweek caters to people who want real news, about real issues.
– Ron Brownstein, LA Times: I don’t always love what he has to say, but he is probably the best-informed television pundit/news analyst out there. Yes, he (like most in his genre) is a little too obsessed with the horse race of it all – but I respect him because he’s serious about doing his homework and he always provides a wealth of information.
– Keith Olbermann, MSNBC: I have trouble watching television chat shows anymore because they have become so inane – but Olbermann does his best to cut through the crap and tell it like it is.
– William Greider, The Nation: Putting aside the fact that I agree with his political slant, it’s hard for anyone to argue that this guy is not a great writer. You may not agree with him, or you may always agree with him, but he’s always interesting, and he’s always covering the most important issues.
– Michael Hersh, Newsweek: While Iskioff gets most of the headlines (and is a good reporter, despite the recent flap), Hersh doesn’t get as much ink. But he’s a very good reporter – especially his stuff about national security issues.
– Ted Koppel, Nightline: Again, no description needed. He asks tough questions. Period.
– Bill O’Reilly, Fox News: JUST KIDDING! (Did you really think I was serious?)
This is by no means a comprehensive list – it’s really just off the top of my head. But as I put it together, I realized something quite interesting. Most of these reporters are issue/beat reporters or investigative journalists, meaning they have a specific ISSUE focus of their work. That stands in contrast to the general “political” reporters whose main focus is covering the horse race and actually IGNORING issues. It is these “political” reporters where the problem really lies – these people have no expertise in any ISSUE at all. Their expertise is on the soap opera. And its a big part of the why much of today’s national political coverage is vapid. … he goes on, but I’ll stop here….
great list. I don’t read much financial stuff, but the rest of list I concur with.
Danny Schechter
Naomi Kline
Mark Danner
Tom Oliphant (Boston Globe)
Dan Froomkin (WaPo)
Now, I don’t know if these are ‘reporters’ or ‘opinion
writers.’ Mark Danner reported from the ground on the
Iraqi election. Naomi reported from Iraq too.
I subscribe
online to Salon.com, The Nation, MediaChannel,
at home to Vanity Fair and Harper’s
I trust The Christian Science Monitor and The Economist
as being fair and objective.
I accept all of Susan’s list as recommended. Except two,
Ted Koppel, he is so vain, he usually thinks it’s about him.
He doesn’t waste his opportunity to bring the facts forward though.
I know Susan is a big fan of Bill O’Reilly but he is such a buffoon.
and her “Democracy Now”. Agree on Knight Ridder – much of the propaganda-free reporting out of Iraq seems to be done by them.
He surrounds himself with lawyers who tell him how to get
legally around immoral acts like torture and unjust wars.
But one day…
to an issue Susan.
Here’s what Danny sez:
“THE WHITE RAT:” WAS HE A HERO
Tricky Dick suspected Mark Felt was the Post’s source and called him — get this — the “white rat.” Conservative media outlets are now smearing him as a traitor while others admire his guts for whistle-blowing. Bob Woodward today reports in the Post on how the two met when he was in the Navy. He reveals that he leaned that Felt ran the FBI’s “Goon Squad.”
Still fully unreported is why others at the time considered Felt an even bigger rat and bigger threat to democracy. Let the record show that this lionized Deep Throat was an instrument of illegal repression in his time.
That’s right. Mr. Felt was a notorious operative in the FBI’s war on dissent and was actually CONVICTED of a crime. Has this small but rather essential biographical detail been featured anywhere?
by
Danny Schechter
“…During the Clinton years, the Washington Post and Newsweek allowed reporter Mike Isikoff to sniff at the President’s zipper and write about our Commander-in-Chief’s Lewinsky. But when it came to a big story about dirty energy industry money for Clinton’s campaigns, Mike told me his editors didn’t ‘give a sh–‘ and so he passed the material for me to print in England.
“Today, Bob Woodward rules as the Post’s Managing Editor. And how is he ‘managing’ the news? After the September 11 attack, when we needed an independent press to keep us from hysteria-driven fascism, Woodward was given ‘access’ to the president, writing Bush at War, a fawning, puke-making fairy tale of a take-charge president brilliantly leading the war against Terror.
“Woodward’s news-oid story is a symptom of a disease epidemic in U.S. journalism. The illness is called, ‘access.’ In return for a supposedly ‘inside’ connection to the powers that be, the journalists in fact become conduits for disinformation sewerage.”
http://www.gregpalast.com
Please add Greg Palast to my list of reporters I trust.
is just what happened with the “embedded” reporters in Iraq.
Christine Amanpour talks about this
Clarke called the disinformation charge “categorically untrue” and added, “In my experience, a little over two years at the Pentagon, I never saw them (the media) holding back. I saw them reporting the good, the bad and the in between.”
Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said of Amanpour’s comments: “Given the choice, it’s better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda.”
CNN had no comment.
USA Today, Sept. 14, 2003
Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said of Amanpour’s comments: “Given the choice, it’s better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda.”
Holy shit. Says it all about the us or them political climate here these days.
That would be 6 months after the invasion of Iraq. Brave woman.
She complained that the news in Iraq was not getting out and she
was quite careful in her comments. Those were the days
when all dissenters were labelled traitors.
Today, she is more forceful. She said recently that behind the backs
of the news reporters in Iraq, their bosses were hobbling them by
agreeing with the military to create ‘pools.’
Have you diaried about Amanpour’s views and attempst to report during all of this?
I noticed she recently quit 60 Minutes because, after Don Hewitt’s retirement, she felt the tv magazine wasn’t going after stories like it used to.
Her story would make a great diary. Or should we wait for
her book. 🙂
6-1-05 8PM RATINGS
FOXNEWS O’Reilly Factor – 2,268,000 viewers
CNN 25th anniversary special — 345,000
MSNBC/Countdown with Keith Olbermann – 213,000
Keitttthhhhhh … we love you, man. I cannot imagine why any sane person would watch the other two shows. (Maybe that’s the problem. There are only 213,000 sane people in the country!)
Didn’t DKos sponsor a blackout of the cable news on 6/1?
…Molly Ivins. She’s been a gem for years.
And can we include blogs?
Susan and Booman are actually doing real investigation as are some of the dKos folks.
Narco News and the school of authentic journalism are showing great courage in exposing real corruption and the effects of some of our worst policies — and they’re taking some heat for it.
Some of the best writing I’ve ever read has been on the internet.
Oh, and fafblog is the funniest political satire in any medium, imo.
He was our favorite reporter for the local rag before he hit the big time and moved to the WaPo. Chances were, if you read a couple of paragraphs without looking at the author, you’d go back to check the byline– yep, it’s Hank!