A
library for the price of a book.
America has, arguably, the least inhibited press in the world. We make heroes of investigative journalists and encourgae anonymous informants and whistle-blowers. And we tolerate a wide diversity of opinion, even fringe and lunatic opinions, as a necessary cost of doing business in a democracy.
But there is a darker side to our celebrated free press. This is nowhere better illustrated than in this collection of eighteen essays by leading investigative journalists, each of whom began a significant investigation, only to have their results suppressed or diluted when powerful economic or political interests were threatened.
Gerald Colby recounts how his own publisher derailed his attempts to
look into the DuPont family and their overpowering influence in the state
of Delaware. Jane Akre tells how her look into the use of bovine
growth hormone to increase milk production cost her her job at a Tampa
television station after she was hired with a promise to have a free hand
at developing
exposes. Greg Palast demonstrates how his examination of the
controversial 2000 presidential election in Florida was ignored when more
trivial irregularities (like hanging and dimpled chads) acted as a smokescreen
to cover up systematic intimidation of (mostly) African-American voters.
Maurice Murad peeks into the inner editorial process behind America's longest-running
investigative TV magazine, 60 Minutes. Kristina Borjesson, April
Oliver, and David Hendrix bitterly tell how the mainstream press's investigation
of the TWA 800 crash into Long Island Sound was managed to deflect closer
and more disturbing scrutiny. Monika Jensen-Stevenson looks at how
the press handled the strange tale of Vietnam Prisoner of War (or
deserter?) Bobby Garwood. Michael Levine and Gary Webb indiocate
how the war on drugs as reported by the mainstream media often fails to
capture the larger picture. Others write on the CIA and the press,
on what muckraking has become, on the ethics of reporters going undercover
to get an otherwise unobtainable story, and on how the role that the founding
fathers envisioned for the press has been subverted by conglomeration and
corporate ownership.
These are all "inside baseball" stories, perhaps more relevant to working reporters than to the news-consuming public. But, once read, you will never look at an investigative report the same way again. And you will always be left wondering: "How much more of the story got dropped for image-saving or other non-legitimate purposes?"
Dialogue on favorite books with Deane Rink before and during his latest trek to Antarctica, with a note from Bill Ransom and a digression about Frank Herbert (a.k.a Bookbabble 101) -- a very long and rapidly growing document:
Book reviews by Richard SeltzerA
library for the price of a book.
The
Middle East -- Context for Conflict: Iraq, Iran, Israel, Syria, Lebanon,
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf States. Historical
background and context for understanding today's news. This CD contains
the full text of 10 "Country Studies" published by the Federal Research
Division of the Library of Congress. Each country study is presented as
a single document, in plain text form -- easy to read, to print, and to
search (rather than as a collection of over 100 separate documents for
each book). The tables in the appendix of each book are presented as html
documents. In addition, we include: The 2003 edition of the CIA
World Factbook, an interlinked set of hundreds of HTML documents, with
detailed up-to-date reference information on every country in the world,
with images of maps and flags; and some classic works of history, literature,
and religion, including The Koran and books on the traditions of Judaism,
all in plain text form. Complete
table of contents Free sample: Iraq,
a Country Study.
Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com
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