Unfortunately, these investigations are taking place in the blogosphere rather than in the "real" media. Why is it that only bloggers are asking these hard questions and publishing the answers? While we see a lot of quote-unquote journalism in the major papers, it's really mostly here's-what-happened, and he-said-then-he-said kind of reporting. I haven't seen any newspaper do a study of how the money from All Children Matter flowed through which lawmakers' campaign accounts, and how those lawmakers voted on the voucher plan. And while Mata Hari exposed Mark Towner's email spamming, I haven't seen a newspaper publish any news of it -- and I thought such spamming was a crime. Paul Rolly is the only columnist I can remember who published news of the voucher sponsors organizing lobbyists to campaign for the voucher plan.
What does it take to have a real public-interest investigation done by, and published in, one of the major newspapers?
That quote comes from Accountability.
What's failing Newspapers today is not the Internet, it's that they have stopped covering the news. Sure, they report on events happening, but when was the last time you saw the newspaper ask a tough question of somebody? Of anybody?
Newspapers don't want to be seen as being biased, and they have become more biased in the process. He who writes the best press release gets the release printed.
Bloggers don't care about being accused of bias, because we are biased. Some of us are more fair than others, but we carry our bias into what we do. Most of us are not driven by money, we are driven by the truth.
-Bob
1 comment:
Thanks, Bob.
On a separate topic, do you know where I could find a list of the private schools who have said they would take vouchers, if the referendum passes? I thought I'd seen one, or at least an article about this topic, but now I can't find it. Thanks.
http://accountabilityfirst.blogspot.com/
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