Newspapers that are truly independent, like The Washington Post, can still aggressively investigate anyone or anything with no holds barred.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
God, newspapers have been making up stories forever. This kind of trifling and fooling around is not a function of the New Journalism.
If information is true, if it can be verified, and if it's really important, the newspaper needs to be willing to take the risk associated with using unidentified sources.
We have got to make sure there is proper independent scrutiny and accountability for people in the press, just as there should be in any other industry where things go wrong. But let's not try and think it is for politicians or governments to tell people what they stick in newspapers. That is deeply illiberal.
The freedom of the press works in such a way that there is not much freedom from it.
I think we'll always have newspapers, but they'll lose influence.
Clearly independent journalists - domestic journalists - run a high risk if they dare to take on serious investigative work.
You know, one wonderful thing that came out of my Enquirer experience is that, in my case, it was ruled tabloids are magazines. Which means they didn't have the protection that a newspaper has.
What you realize hanging out with investigative reporters is that, while they may be personally liberal, they don't let that get in the way of a good story.
It's one of the biggest fibs going that American newspapers are now being forced to give up their commitment to investigative reporting. Most of them gave up long ago as their greedy managements squeezed every cent out of the bottom line and turned their newsrooms into eunuchs.
But I know newspapers. They have the first amendment and they can tell any lie knowing it's a lie and they're protected if the person's famous or it's a company.