Wonderland or Not

Real jour­na­lism. I love it. I read it. I want more of it.

Most of the rea­ders here know this topic is one of my chain pullers. Pun­dits are not jour­na­lists, nor are most blog­gers. Huff-Po (for the sake of bre­vity the only exam­ple, of many poten­tial exam­ples, I will use), at least up until now, had no real inves­ti­ga­tive jour­na­lists. What they had was a group of peo­ple, some with a cer­tain exper­tise, some not so much, willing to give their opi­nion based on the facts as they see them. For god sake Bill Maher?

Opi­nion is good, I love giving mine. This post is tag­ged opi­nion. It’s my favo­rite tag. I love a few of Huff-Po’s colum­nists too, but what about the real inves­ti­ga­tive jour­na­lism? The kind that makes us sit back and think, not run to the nea­rest opi­nion blog to see what others think. What about fin­ding out the ans­wers to lar­ger socie­tal and poli­ti­cal quan­da­ries? For all the ram­bling on the new way of news, there is no new way of real inves­ti­ga­tive jour­na­lism. We are already a world of edi­to­rials, thanks to cable tele­vi­sion. When the jour­na­lism, or the source of the news, goes to hell, the edi­to­rials are worth less than they would be other­wise, and that’s unner­ving, con­si­de­ring how edi­to­rials go.

I came across the posts lis­ted in the follo­wing para­graphs and thought I’d put them out there for you to read, as a pre­lude to the NYT maga­zine Strai­ned by Katrina, a Hos­pi­tal Faced Deadly Choi­ces . The piece — by Sheri Fink, an M.D., a staff repor­ter at Pro­Pu­blica, and senior fellow at the Har­vard Huma­ni­ta­rian Ini­tia­tive — is a spec­ta­cu­lar must read (will be in the NYT Maga­zine this wee­kend), and an exam­ple of what we may be mis­sing in the future. It is a piece that needs diges­ting, and we will dis­cuss the piece itself another time, save to say that this is real inves­ti­ga­tive jour­na­lism, done by peo­ple who know what they are doing, and care about the sub­ject mat­ter. It takes time, and it is expen­sive to produce.

This post is merely a link to posts asking the ques­tions we have to ask. Good reads for what might be a rainy wee­kend in many pla­ces throughout this country.
Cost of the NYT Maga­zine NOLA Story Bro­ken Down
The Price of Truth

My ques­tion for the wee­kend is, if we are unwi­lling to pay for things like real inves­ti­gate jour­na­lism, why? Is it because we really don’t want to know the truth? Are we are too wrap­ped up in our own pro­blems, sig­ni­fi­cant or not, to see any worth in the lar­ger ethi­cal, social, or poli­ti­cal ques­tions we should be asking. Or is it some kind of cal­cu­la­ted evo­lu­tion? Will jour­na­lism go the way of the clothing we wear, made in third world coun­tries, some­ti­mes from fac­to­ries with ques­tio­na­ble labor prac­ti­ces, and often of les­ser quality.

What say you?

What of the future of jour­na­lism? What of the future of the truth.

Check out the pre­ce­ding post, Old School Fri­day, if you mis­sed it.