C E tB B M T IM C M
street r o o t a lB
Education * Dialogue ♦ Independence ■ ■
8
the muck?
Harper’s editor Ken Silverstein lays out his brutal vision of modern-day journalism
BY JOANNE ZUHL
S T A FF W R IT E R
ike many people these days, Ken
Silverstein Has, offered up more than a
few biting words against America’s
corporate media. But Silverstein, unlike a
lot of armchair press pundits, has the
credentialsto know intimately the
machinations behind the rise and fall of
modern media.
• As a former investigative reporter for the
Los Angeles Times, Silverstein — who also
worked for the Associated Press in Brazil —
covered the top echelons of political and
corporate manipulation and corruption in
the United States and abroad. He has
investigated the foreign dealings of U.S. oil
companies, prompting a federal grand jury
and an investigation by the House Ethics
Committee.
A few years ago, Silvesfeein went
undercover to see just how far lobbyists
would go for their clients, in his case a fake
company looking to bolster the image of
Turkmenistan. The result is laid out in his
book, “Turkmeniscam,” in which lobbyists .
vie for making the oppressive Stalinist
regime palatable to the press, politicians
and investers.
Today, Ken Silverstein is the Washington
D.C. editor for Harper’s Magazine and
writes Washington Babylon for Harper’s
online. He is an ardent observer of the
newspaper industry and the state of
investigative journalism today, which is
where we began our conversation.
■
Ken Silverstein: First of all, tw ant to
say that there is excellent investigative
journalism taking place today in the
mainstream press. Because I think
frequently there’s too much criticism. It’s ,
ironic that often you go to blogs of both the
left and right complaining so much about
the mainstream press, and yet-they’re
linking almost exclusively to mainstream
news items. That said, there is great
reporting takingplace and I think every day
you can find it, but it’s not nearly-as vibrant
as it should be or used to be.
Of course, .newspapers and the media in
general are in crisis. Everybody is losing
money. Nobody can figure out how to make
money. Investigative reporting is very
expensive and soqt’s the easiest thing to
cut.
I used to work at the L.A. Times, which,
of course, has been decimated. I would be
able to spend my time prettyfreely on
investigative reporting. I was on the
investigative unit in D.C. and I remember
once finding a very good story that involved
traveling to Sudan. Well, I went to my boss
and I didn’t even have to write her a memo.
I laid out the story in a minute, and she said
just start planning your trip. That’s
becoming less and less frequent because .
there’s just not that much money and
everybody’s cutting back.
Secondly, I do think the press is
becoming worse. The Washington press
corps in particular is far too close to the
embrace puuaui diversity
portiandhearingvoiGes.net
people it is supposed to be covering. And
you have a very cozy situation where
everybody knows each other — members of
Congress and the lobbyists and the public
relations consultants and journalists. And I
think it’s taken a lot of the bite out of
journalism. I don’t want to be romantic,
because newspapers have always been
pretty much a vehicle of propagating elite
opinion. There’s no question that that’s
always been the role of the newspaper. But
even so, there’s been terrific hard-edge
reporting from the beginning of the
American newspaper industry.
' J.Z.: B u t there was a time when that kin d
o f investigative reporting was a sell. You look
a t Woodward a n d Bernstein, Pentagon Papers,
even Iran/Contra, those issues and those
stories and the investment in the reporting
made those newspapers valuable and sought-
after.
K.S,: I think you’re right, and even now
investigative reporting can be a sell. You still
win prizes for investigative reporting, which
newspapers covet. They love the Pulitzer
and other assorted prizes, which is another
long story and sort of a racket in itself. But
still, there’s alo t of cachet to good
investigative reporting still. It’s just that as
newspapers become more and more
squeezed for money, it’s the easiest thing to
“A jo u rn a list is a grumbler,
a censurer, a g iver o f
advice, a regent o f
sovereigns, a tutor o f
nations. F o u r hostile
newspapers are more to be
feared than a thousand
bayonets.”
-N a p o le o n Bonaparte
SEE M UC K , p a g e 9
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