Deep Throat: A Hard Look at Today's Mainstream Media

In today's mainstream print media (forget about tv "news"), true investigative journalism is dead. Its true that big dailies do the occasional investigation into some local or state malfeasance; but they never go after the power players in politics and government. That would be death for their careers. Why? B/c, despite popular belief that the media is liberal, the truth is, it is owned and controlled by the rich. Those rich folks are most usually Republicans who are beholden to shareholders. It's a sad affair. Today is a time when investigative journalism is desperately needed to curb the unchecked power running amok in the halls of Washington.

Here's an excellent piece on this by Greg Palast.

Deep Throat Cover Blown
Washington Post Still Sucks
By Greg Palast
www.gregpalast.com

Wednesday 01 June 2005

I've been gagging all morning on the Washington Post's self-congratulatory preening about its glory days of the Watergate investigation.

Think about it. It's been 33 years since cub reporters Woodward and Bernstein pulled down the pants of the Nixon operation and exposed its tie-in to the Watergate burglary. That marks a third of a century since the Washington Post has broken a major investigative story. I got a hint why there's been such a dry spell after I met Mark Hosenball, investigative reporter for the Washington Post's magazine, Newsweek.

It was in the summer of 2001. A few months earlier, for the Guardian papers of Britain, I'd discovered that Katherine Harris and Governor Jeb Bush of Florida had removed tens of thousands of African-Americans from voter registries before the 2000 election, thereby fixing the race for George Bush. Hosenball said the Post-Newsweek team "looked into it and couldn't find anything."

Nothing at all? What I found noteworthy about the Post's investigation was that "looking into it" involved their reporters chatting with Florida officials -- but not bothering to look at the voter purge list itself.

Yes, I admit the Washington Post ran my story -- seven months after the election -- but with the key info siphoned out, such as the Bush crew's destruction of evidence and the salient fact that almost all those purged were Democrats. In other words, the story was drained of anything which might discomfit the new residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
www.truthout.org...