Pirate's Cove

Investigating Republicans, of course. How cute. A nominal Republican is having a bit of an issue, so now she’s all for hardcore investigative journalism. Locally. Democracy demands it

Democracy needs dogged local journalism

(Multiple paragraphs regarding “lane closures” to start)

It’s one thing for public officials to subject one another to that kind of low-level, neener-neener harassment, but in New Jersey, reporters have been targeted too. Wildstein snatched up and redirected ShawnBoburg.com after Boburg wrote a (not terribly unflattering) profile of the intensely private Wildstein last year and an article on Christie’s patronage hiring.

Interesting. Remember how Team Obama went overboard investigating James Rosen and his family through the Justice Dept? And the Associated Press? Seems they were targeted for reprisal. How about the IRS scandal, which is also part of Obama’s 1st Amendment violation pattern?

If it weren’t for the dogged local press corps, Christie would still be ridiculing this story, attacking the legislators investigating it and persuading most of the national press to dismiss it.

Where’s that dogged local, state, and national press corps when it comes to the actions of Team Obama? Where’s Rachel and her crew, along with the employees of MSNBC, in investigating Team Obama?

She also mentions John Rowland, gov of Connecticut, and Mark Sanford, and how “local” reporters drove them out. Also, the EVIL Exxon and some old pipes or something. Weird that there’s no mention of Democrats like Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, and Fithly Bob Filner.

Most of the time, national news happens out loud: at news conferences, on the floor of Congress, in splashy indictments or court rulings. But sometimes, the most important news starts somewhere more interesting, and it has to be dug up. Our democracy depends on local journalism, whether it’s a beat reporter slogging through yet another underattended local commission meeting, or a state political reporter with enough of an ear to the ground to know where the governor might be when he isn’t where he says he is, or a traffic columnist who’s nobody’s fool.

Where are the reporters digging up the dirt on Team Obama? I’m glad that she demands hardcore journalism: when will she practice it?

It’s annoying to pay for information — I know. But if you don’t subscribe to your local paper or pony up to get behind its online paywall, who’s going to pay reporters to cover the news where you live? A free press isn’t that kind of “free.” An accountable democracy doesn’t work without real information, gathered from the ground up, about people in power, everywhere. Be inspired by the beleaguered but unintimidated reporters of Chris Christie’s New Jersey: Whatever your partisan affiliation, or lack thereof, subscribe to your local paper today. It’s an act of civic virtue.

And there you have it: one of the leading “Progressive” voices on TV, who virtually determines how most of MSNBC runs, is telling you that the media should get their behinds out there and investigate, investigate, investigate. So, according to Rachel Maddow, reporters should be working hard to uncover what happened with Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS, Pigford, Eric Holder’s perjury, influence peddling, and so much more, and if they don’t, they aren’t doing their jobs. I doubt that’s what she mean when she wrote the opinion piece, it was most likely intended just to keep the Christie “lane closures” issue going, but her unintentional points are valid, and I look forward to all the investigative journalism regarding Team Obama that should be coming from MSNBC starting now.

Crossed at Right Wing News.