{"id":29,"date":"2005-06-04T12:12:56","date_gmt":"2005-06-04T02:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/?p=29"},"modified":"2005-06-11T13:25:58","modified_gmt":"2005-06-11T03:25:58","slug":"investigative-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2005\/06\/04\/investigative-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigative Journalism?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- UnMarkedDown_2_01132526281--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2005\/05\/31\/AR2005053100655.html\">Deep Throat<\/a>&#8216;s identity gets revealed, reminding people about the power of investigative journalism. <\/p>\n<p>Media pundits deny that such investigative reporting could happen today.  [Ref: ABC Radio &amp; others]<\/p>\n<p>At the <href =\"http:\/\/billmon.org\">Whiskey Bar, Billmon defends the <a href=\"http:\/\/billmon.org\/archives\/001870.html\">the modern level of whistleblowing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In such an environment, imagine you are the editor of a major daily paper in a major city, and an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.walkleys.com\/\">Walkley Award-winning<\/a> journalist files the following story synopsis:<\/p>\n<p><em>We peeked and pried into the life of an ex-patriat former-celebrity athlete. He wasn&#8217;t interested in giving us an interview &#8211; we&#8217;ve hounded him in the past &#8211; so we hassled his neighbours and all of the local shopkeepers. We found nothing&#8230; zip&#8230; zilch. Nothing to report except that &#8220;he likes a private life&#8221;, that he&#8217;s &#8220;very well-behaved&#8221; and &#8220;very nice&#8221;.  Oh, and he reads the paper, drinks flavoured milk and has a large TV.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What do you do with this trash?  Bin it?  Chastise the reporter? Write a letter to the athlete to apologise for prying, and wish him the best of luck with his new life?<\/p>\n<p>Surely you don&#8217;t run it as the main story on the front page of the Weekend Edition&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/news\/Cricket\/Model-little-Briton\/2005\/06\/03\/1117568382188.html\">Possibly short lived-link to an article<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/news\/World\/James-Button--London\/2005\/03\/29\/1111862381016.html\">James Button<\/a> in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\">Sydney Morning Herald<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>On page 5, there was an article about an unfortunate woman being bitten twice by a dog.<\/p>\n<p>I understand that &#8220;Dog bites man&#8221; isn&#8217;t considered front page news. But neither, Mr Editor,  is &#8220;Man walks dog&#8221;.<br \/>\n<\/href><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dog bites woman, page 5. Man walks dog, page 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cathartic-rant","category-influencing-others","category-tribal-affiliation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}