Among the things we are largely missing during the pandemic is good old-fashioned investigative reporting. Day in day out, I just don't see much original muckraking in the media outlets I monitor, which is pretty much all of the major ones in the U.S. and abroad. Of course, it's hard to do that work when you're locked down at home.
Even in brighter times, that kind of work is rare and mainly the product of print media, magazines and newspapers, with occasional contributions from electronic media, TV, radio, and the Internet.
Even the leading U.S. investigative TV shows, "60 Minutes" and "20/20," largely relied on print media for their ideas. Not to say that they didn't advance those stories in the process, because sometimes they did.
At the Center for Investigative Reporting, while in the early years print outlets were our major distribution partners, we did maintain retainers with "60 Minutes," "20/20," and the network news outfits here and overseas.
But turning a fact-intensive story into effective TV is literally a production issue. You've to nail the shots, the through lines, the visual narrative elements or it just won't work.
As for the Internet, I helped coordinate investigations at Salon, Wired, BNET, 7x7.com and KQED, with varying degrees of success and impact. Speaking with one of my favorite reporter Saturday, I was reminded by hard it is for him and his colleagues to get out and break new stories when they remain at home, masked and socially distanced.
Good reporters like them to be out and about, running into people, noticing patterns, checking out hunches. You can't do that hunkered down in your apartment with Zoom calls as your only connection to other people.
Meanwhile the virtual social networks are thriving -- LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, among others. The latest is Clubhouse, an invitation-only work-in-progress that features podcast-type get-togethers.
I joined and so far it seems like a lot of babbling to me, frankly, but maybe I just need to find the right babblers for my taste. In any event, there's not much opportunity for investigative reporting there, either...
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When I lived there, the idea that Washington D.C. wasn't a state and therefore didn't have the elected representation that 50 other jurisdictions have was hard to justify. I suppose one could argue that *all* of the senators and representatives speak on behalf of the people of D.C. but it sure doesn't feel that way.
Over 100,000 more people live in Washington D.C. than the entire state of Wyoming. Fully 38 states (76 percent) don't have any city at all the size of D.C.
It often seems as if the metropolis is Uncle Sam's foster child and not a particularly well-cared-for one at that. More than anything it's a relic of our colonial period, much as Hawaii and Alaska were until the '50s, Puerto Rico is presently, and Greenland would be if Trump had had his way.
There is also the uncomfortable reality that black people built the government buildings that symbolize and house our national system and D.C. remains a heavily black city to this day.
Of course, that the party that purports to be descended from the man who freed the slaves is headed by a man who encourages racist attitudes precludes any hope of a bipartisan movement to admit D.C. to statehood. But this is a case where practical politics and principle are in direct conflict, so the right thing to do will not be done.
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The news:
* D.C. statehood moves from political fringe to Democrats’ national agenda (WaPo)
* U.S. Rushes to Expand Covid Vaccine Eligibility in a ‘Race Against Time’ (NYT)
* 4 men linked to Proud Boys charged in plot to attack Capitol (AP)
* Pete Buttigieg on the Pandemic Year: How Little We Communicate With Words -- Will our old ways of sensing one another be enhanced by the new ones we have had to develop? (WSJ)
* 'Tough' U.S.-China talks signal rocky start to relations under Biden (Reuters)
* Overseas Spectators Will Be Banned From Tokyo Olympics Due To COVID-19 Risks (NPR)
* The mood is so bad at the U.S. Capitol that a Democratic congressman recently let an elevator pass him by rather than ride with Republican colleagues. (AP)
* The coronavirus pandemic almost didn't happen, a new study in the journal Science suggests. Only bad luck and the packed conditions of the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan -- the place the pandemic apparently began -- gave the virus the edge it needed to explode around the globe. (CNN)
* Cuomo Faces New Claims of Sexual Harassment From Current Aide (NYT)
* Canada's main opposition party members reject proposal to recognize climate change as real (Reuters)
*Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has a long and seemingly insurmountable to-do list, including a pledge to begin repairing a legacy of broken treaties and other abuses against tribes. (NPR)
* U.S. businesses near border struggle with boundaries’ closure (AP)
* Gavin Newsom’s pandemic year: Mistakes, progress and political jeopardy (WaPo)
* No vaccines, no leadership, no end in sight. How Brazil became a global threat (CNN)
* Mars once had rivers, lakes and seas. Although the planet is now desert dry, scientists say most of the water is still there, just locked up in rocks. (NYT)
* Half of UK adults have gotten one dose of COVID-19 vaccine (AP)
* Volcano Erupts In Southwestern Iceland After Thousands Of Earthquakes (NPR)
* One of the four top seeds, Michigan (21-4) won its first game over Texas Southern, 82-66, in the NCAA Tournament Saturday to advance along with the other three top seeds, Illinois, Gonzaga and Baylor. UM plays LSU Monday in the next round. (CBS)
* Michigan forward Isaiah Livers, one of the three basketball players at the forefront of an athlete-led movement calling for NCAA reform, wore a #NotNCAAProperty T-shirt during his team's first-round NCAA tournament game on Saturday. Instead of a Michigan warmup shirt, or some sort of other NCAA-sanctioned attire, he wore the T-shirt, which appears to have been produced by The Players Trunk, a start-up that helps former college athletes sell memorabilia.Livers and other players, including Rutgers' Geo Baker and Iowa's Jordan Bohannon, have specifically called for “rule changes to allow all athletes the freedom to secure representation and receive pay for use of our name, image, and likeness by July 1.”"It's time we student-athletes deserve the chance to create our own money from name, image and likeness," Livers tweeted Thursday. (Yahoo Sports)
* Study Finds Fewer Americans Than Ever Trust News Bloopers (The Onion)
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-- Francis Scott Key
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