An anonymous reader writes: Investigative journalism is dead in America.
The news media in a democracy is supposed to act as a guardian of the public interest and as a watchdog on the activities of government. Judging by the media cheerleading before the invasion of Iraq, we know that is no longer the case.
A good way to judge how much the American media cares about what the American public thinks is to try to submit a story idea or news tip anonymously to any major news web site. The Internet is the most popular and easy to use media in history. Every major news organization has a web site and they put out what they consider to be their product. What they don't do is listen. Not a single major news organization web site is set to accept anonymous news tips from the public. Not one. A few small town papers do and I applaud them for their courage. Some of the independent sites like Drudge Report do. But not ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN. Not Time or Newsweek. In fact, I can find no major publication that does.
What are the news media afraid of? Has the government or their corporate owners pressured them to always be able to identify their sources? Are they afraid that some tips may make the entrenched powers look bad? The American news media is deaf to the Internet and laughs at protecting anonymity.
For all the glamour of the media protecting "Deep Throat" from being identified, that is a very rare case and it happened a long time ago. In today's media, Deep Throat's DNA would have to be on file with the NSA before the NY Times would listen to him.
Slashdot, I'm glad you're one of the few that still does accept a story idea without knowing the author. Keep fighting the good fight.