Here’s a great quote from John Walcott’s acceptance speech for the I. F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. Walcott won the medal for the Knight-Ridder Washington bureau’s coverage of the push to invade Iraq. Of all the major media outlets, they were the only ones who got it right.
Somehow, the idea has taken hold in Washington journalism that the value of a source is directly proportional to his or her rank, when in my experience the relationship is more often inverse.
October 9, 2008 at 11:27 pm
The inverse relationship between honesty and rank is interesting if applied to campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddy: Obama received more from the employees, but McCain received more (by a factor of ten) from Fannie and Freddy officers, directors and lobbiests. Its the ones at the top that act out of desire to squelch investigation.