"Deep Throat Cover Blown, Washington Post Still Sucks" Greg Palast

[elehhhhna]

Deep Throat Cover Blown
Washington Post Still Sucks

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

By Greg Palast

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 of why the long, dry spell when 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. http://www.gregpalast.com/

[EST]

1. Regrettably predictable.

[oasis]

2. Palast is telling it like it is. (eom)

[Solly Mack]

3. Palast pisses off all the right people.

I like that about him.

[Demit]

4. I remember that. Like asking the foxes if they'd been in the henhouse, and

reporting their answer & calling it an investigation. Uh-huh. WaPo will have to do a lot of work to get back their rep. Patting themselves on the back for past glories ain't gonna do it.

[Zen Democrat]

5. In 1972 Woodward and Bernstein WEREN"T investigative reporters

for the Washington Post. They were basically flunkies, Woodward was covering the DC city beat -- the courthouse, etc. -- and Bernstein was editing copy. Woodward just happened to be around when the burglars were arrested -- and the rest, they say, is history.

None of the WP's "investigative reporters" did jack on the Watergate story -- that is, until Woodward and Bernstein were promoted AFTER breaking and working the story.

[poverlay]

6. Mr Palast is such a wonderful reporter.

I wish there were a couple like him in America...

I buy all his books and cards.

Keep up the good work Greg!!!