L.A. Times op-ed, by Greg Palast: U.S. media have lost the will to dig deep

[DeepModem Mom]

L.A. Times: U.S. media have lost the will to dig deep
A changed news culture has let several important investigative stories slip through the cracks.
By Greg Palast
(GREG PALAST is the author of "Armed Madhouse: From New Orleans to Baghdad -- Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.")
April 27, 2007

IN AN E-MAIL uncovered and released by the House Judiciary Committee last month, Tim Griffin, once Karl Rove's right-hand man, gloated that "no (U.S.) national press picked up" a BBC Television story reporting that the Rove team had developed an elaborate scheme to challenge the votes of thousands of African Americans in the 2004 election.

Griffin wasn't exactly right. The Los Angeles Times did run a follow-up article a few days later in which it reported the findings. But he was essentially right. Most of the major U.S. newspapers and the vast majority of television news programs ignored the story even though it came at a critical moment just weeks before the election.

According to Griffin (who has since been dispatched to Arkansas to replace one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Justice Department), the mainstream media rejected the story because it was wrong.

"That guy is a British reporter who accepted some false allegations and made a story up," he said.

Let's get one fact straight, Mr. Griffin. "That guy" is not a British reporter. I am an American living abroad, putting investigative reports on the air from London for the British Broadcasting Corp.

I'm not going to argue with Rove's minions about the validity of our reporting, which led the news in Britain. But I can tell you this: To the extent that it was ignored in the United States, it wasn't because the report was false. It was because it was complicated and murky and because it required a lot of time and reporting to get to the bottom of it. In fact, not one U.S. newsperson even bothered to ask me or the BBC for the data and research we had painstakingly done in our effort to demonstrate the existence of the scheme.

The truth is, I knew that a story like this one would never be reported in my own country. Because investigative reporting — the kind Jack Anderson used to do regularly and which was carried in hundreds of papers across the country, the kind of muckraking, data-intensive work that takes time and money and ruffles feathers — is dying....

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-palast27apr27,1,200401.story?coll=la-news-comment

[arcane1]

1. Greg spoke to a packed theater last night in Oakland

along with showing his New Orleans movie.. and, of course, he kicked ass :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I love Greg, and it is time to press the press

to do its job, by breaking it up in small little bitty pieces

Greg it is also who owns the press why it is not done

[PATRICK]

3. Systemic

Sure local news is supposed to be smaller in mnay ways, but even here there has been room to decline. Not a frequent watcher I suddenly noted how the "investigative reporting" took on one case. Unfortunately the conman had already faced charges ages ago and thanks to media absence had continued to bilk and destroy even more victimes, one whose teary story was the lead anecdote for the old news.

It struck me that perhaps there was a fear of getting involved before indictments and litigations which would be a corporate no-no and an unwillingness to tar perhaps the entire finance counseling industry, a corporate verboten. The story was sat on until the rat had no teeth and was isolated. NO social analysis or warning or message to the public accompanied the fall of the crook, who even so was treated tenderly when he easily blew off an ambush qquestioning in the hall. Reporters have become gummy mouthed puppies who make the victims look as pathetic as possible and the distant crook as mysterious and ominous(but hey, the crime is still alleged).

But the volume and presentation of this sad reduction in news journalism still fits the mold as infotainment for all the real good it does. The old medicine show has moved into "news" and fundamentally it is more glaring and dangerous a fraud.

[mod mom]

4. Those of us who follow Palast of course know of this story and figured it was swept

under the proverbial rug in an effort to falsely legitimize the bu$h election. We've seen the same in Ohio after the 2004 election. 3,000 + votes in a 600 person precinct?...oops minor mistake. Level 10 Homeland Security threat in Warren County on election day that nobody knew about? Nothing to see here ...just move along.

Propaganda and deceit are the hallmark of today corporate media-just look at the Andrea Mitchell report on today's front page. Thank goodness for the internet with fact based news and folks doing real investigation.

[EV_Ares]

5. Thanks for posting this. I hope he along with others will start hammering

the media and attempt to get them to do their job instead of worrying about going to the WH Press party and dancing with Rove.

Gets a vote here.

[yurbud]

6. Greg Palast in the LA Times?! Hell has frozen over!

I had a long email exchange with an LA Times editor a couple of years back, and the guy essentially said it was all conspiracy theories.

The LA Times did run a profile of him as an author but didn't discuss any of the substance of his stories.

Since then, of course, everything Greg has reported has panned out.

[Uncle Joe]

7. Thanks for the thread DeepModem Mom

Kicked and recommended

[katty]

8. he's so good

[Grandrose]

9. Respectfully Disagree.....

The msm has not lost the will, they are paid to look the other way.:evilfrown: