real journalism

Is there anyone left still doing real journalism in the U.S.?

What I'm asking is whether there's anybody doing the hard work, research, and fact checking necessary to get to the truth of complex and contentious issues. I'm asking if there's anyone left who's humble enough to do this work outside the glitzy, personality-driven, showbiz and celebrity atmosphere of the TV newsroom. I'm also asking if there's anyone who retains that most important journalistic trait, independence, which enables a reporter to examine and investigate the sometimes preposterous claims of government sources and people in authority, and then report on the truth or falsehood of those claims, as the reporter understands such truth.

I'm happy to say somebody is doing just that. This morning I learned from Atrios that today's New York Times front-page article recounting the recent crimes of Goldman-Sachs drew heavily on information reported two months ago by the McClatchy News Service's Greg Gordon. McClatchy is the best, and as far as I can tell the only national news service still doing real journalism in this country today. They're a national newspaper chain -- 30 dailies mostly in medium-sized cities -- and their website is an invaluable source of independent and honest reporting. McClatchy is nothing less than a precious national resource.

The Goldman-Sachs article referenced above is a gem. It's long and detailed, but written so clearly and cleanly that the complex scams run by Goldman to defraud their investors become easily comprehensible to laypersons, and the arrogant criminality of the banksters is suddenly illuminated by the full light of day. How Henry Paulson, later Bush's Treasury Secretary, sold "securities" known as collateralized debt obligations, backed by subprime mortgage loans, to unwary investors, how he was able to tout them as "triple-A rated" after bribing the ratings agencies to become accessories to the scam, how he knew these "securities" were on the verge of tanking, and how he purchased billions worth of insurance bets known as credit default swaps against losses connected with those so-called securities with his left hand even as he was selling this garbage with his right hand, is all laid out in Gordon's expertly crafted piece, and I would highly recommend anyone remotely interested in these nefarious doings read the whole thing.

Those of us who respect and admire real journalism haven't forgotten that during the run-up to the Iraq War, when CNN's Wolf Blitzer was cheerleading for the administration and echoing their WMD claims, when Chris Matthews at MSNBC was echoing Cheney's and Rice's ridiculous assertions about "mushroom clouds," and when the holy New York Times was running front-page articles by Judith Miller, who was only too happy to act as the Bush administration's lead stenographer in spreading these lies, McClatchy was the only news outlet to question the administration's propaganda, and to debunk some of the more outrageous lies and obvious fabrications coming out of the White House. That kind of courageous independence and commitment to the truth is almost, but not quite vanished from the news business, but as long as we have McClatchy American journalism is still alive.

Here in Washington McClatchy owns four papers including Tacoma's News-Tribune, an excellent daily out the state's third-largest city, the Bellingham Herald, and the daily paper in Olympia, the state's capitol.

Also in the New York Times this morning was an editorial whose apparent purpose is to perpetuate the lie of the Iranian nuclear threat. Somebody call McClatchy.