The article gets to a major conundrum in journalism. There are other problems, to be sure, but this one raises key questions.

"Journalists’ claims to be outside politics and ideology simply mean that they will be trapped within conventional politics and captured by the dominant ideology." The article probes about a possible larger role for journalism than scandals within the system. The article is thoughtful. Is it denigrating the good in search of the perfect, or urging an improvement in the good?

Sourcing doesn't matter here, and I'm not even sure it's good journalism, but as an analysis of journalism it's required reading, especially for the notion that we deal with the effects of power, but not with how power works.

This story may be of critical importance to the future of our free press, but I think Jensen himself has a problem. Rather than seeing the Pro Publica mission statement as a general concept that can be expected (hoped?) to morph to meet the needs of current environments, he sees constraints and evasions. He sees "but" instead of "and" in his examples. Perhaps it's just to avoid appearances of a shill. Let's hope so because Pro Publica sounds to me like the last and greatest hope for ... More »

using only a couple paragraphs from a mission statement doesn't give me as a reader enough information to warrant understanding of the writer's criticisms. the overall goals of the project he writes about sound good for the public, and altho he's right about the mega contexts for institutions, businesses, systems, etc., it seems too soon to know how the journalists themselves will accomplish the mission. i wonder if his real goal is to 'vaccinate' them against what he fears they will do.

I find this argument problematic in that he does not seem to consider the scope of the investigative journalism Pro Publica is undertaking. The systemic critiques he's asking for are usually the domain of books, not 1000 word newspaper or magazine pieces.

a concise and pointed thrust at the deeply ideological frame of 'no ideology' that cripples the self-described mission of Pro Publica and limits it to the remediation of partial wrongs in the nonpolitical parts of daily life; that is what 'investigative journalism' became in the post-watergate, Geraldo Rivera era : go after nursing homes, not politicians and governments. The NY Times actually does a very good job in this arena (see their story on RR grade crossings as anexample)-- ... More »