Muckraking

Death Of Journalist Michael Hastings At Age 33 A Loss Of Massive Proportions!

Ronald 1 Comment

It was a shock to discover yesterday that journalist Michael Hastings, age 33, the person who exposed General Stanley McChrystal’s open criticism of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, forcing his retirement from the military, had been killed in an horrific auto accident in Los Angeles.

A journalist for Rolling Stone and Buzz Feed, Hastings had reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, and was a man of courage and convictions, and the author of two books on public affairs. It is ironic that he avoided harm in both wars, and was killed in Los Angeles by a traffic accident.

Hastings represented the best in journalism, true muckraking, exposing people in power for their short comings. The potential of his future contributions is impossible to measure! This death really has shaken the journalism community, and the author as well!

The Takeover Of Major News Media By The Koch Brothers A Menace To Journalism!

Ronald 23 Comments

Charles and David Koch, the infamous Koch Brothers, who promote libertarianism to the extreme, wanting no government regulation of business, and sponsors of the Tea Party Movement, as their dad was the promoter of the John Birch Society in the 1960s, are now attempting to buy up a whole group of newspapers that are in financial trouble, and need buyers to survive.

These newspapers include:

The Los Angeles Times
The Chicago Tribune
The Baltimore Sun
The Orlando Sentinel
The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel
The Hartford Courant

These six papers and three smaller ones are all under Tribune ownership, which is in receivership, and it seems likely that these right wing extremists will come to control the fourth and ninth largest newspapers in the nation (Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune), as well as the others, and in so doing, will destroy American journalism as we know it!

Added on to the control of Fox News Channel and Rupert Murdoch over the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, it means we will see a growing extreme rightward tilt in news coverage, and the end of independent,, muckraking journalism over time!

This Koch Brothers takeover will deal a death blow to the distinguished field of news coverage, and all of us will be the losers, if that event, which seems likely, occurs!