935 Lies by Charles Lewis

Author:Charles Lewis [Lewis, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610391184
Publisher: PublicAffairs

Many people, then and since, have asked me what exactly I was thinking—after all, I was walking away from a successful career full of future promise. Certainly, quitting 60 Minutes was the most impetuous thing I have ever done. But looking back, I realize how I’d changed. Beneath my polite, mild-mannered exterior, I’d developed a bullheaded determination not to be denied, misled, or manipulated. And more than at any previous time, I had had a jarring epiphany that the obstacles on the way to publishing the unvarnished truth had become more formidable internally than externally. I joked to friends that it had become far easier to investigate the bastards—whoever they are—than to suffer through the reticence, bureaucratic hand-wringing, and internal censorship of my employer.21

In a highly collaborative medium, I had found myself working with overseers I felt I could no longer trust journalistically or professionally, especially in the face of public criticism or controversy—a common occupational hazard for an investigative reporter. My job was to produce compelling investigative journalism for an audience of 30 million to 40 million Americans. But if my stories generated the slightest heat, it was obvious to me who would be expendable. My sense of isolation and vulnerability was palpable.

The best news about this crossroads moment was that after eleven years in the intense, cutthroat world of network television news, I still had some kind of inner compass. I was still unwilling to succumb completely to the lures of career ambition, financial security, peer pressure, or conventional wisdom.

But the bad news was that major investigative reporting did not seem to be particularly valued by national news editors, whether in broadcasting or newspapers. Instead, they seemed satisfied merely to reactively report on the systemic abuses of power, trust, and the law in Washington—from the Iran-Contra scandal to the savings and loan disaster to the first resignation of a House Speaker since 1800. There was very little proactive, original investigative journalism about these or other vitally important subjects, and, equally galling to me, there was smug arrogance and complacency instead of apologetic humility by those in the national press corps, despite their lackluster pursuit of such abuses of power.

There had to be a better way.

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