Challenge

In the Hobbesian Thunder-dome of commercial news media actual investigative journalists are an endangered species. That is bad news for the rest for the rest of us, because actual journalists are the tiny, blue ribbon of breathable atmosphere that fuels critical thought on this planet. Much of the “news” we see consists of bloviation from commentators hired for their ability to scare old, white people and keep them watching the television until the next Depends commercial.

Leah McGrath Goodman is on the oxygen squad. She not only asks the right questions, she renders answers that are relatable to every reader. She finds the humanity within even the most Byzantine pile of sophist bullshit. She looks where the monied class wish she would not look. She asks questions that inconvenience. She routinely pisses off a-holes. That kind of behavior can inspire those with sundry means to respond in kind.

The response to Leah’s reporting is out of a standard playbook: various flavors of intimidation. Rote. Predictable. Comprehensively cynical. And as an agent of attrition, the playbook is essentially effective. An investigative journalist has little material incentive to dive face-first into a pile of shit, but they still do it.

Why? Because if they don’t we’re all fucked, and they know it.