Q: More philosophically, should there even be a such thing as liberal or conservative investigative journalism? Shouldn't investigative journalism take the reporter wherever the facts lead? If you were a conservative investigative reporter who dug up something that cast conservatives in a bad light, would you feel obliged to reveal it?
A: "Philosophically, investigative journalism is liberal for the reasons I already have discussed. It is driven by a change-the-world attitude that trusts government and maligns Big Business and other perceived evils. The belief systems of the reporters and their editors influence what gets investigated and what doesn't. Last year's 'ClimateGate' scandal and the mainstream media's willfully subdued reaction to it made that perfectly clear. If conservatives wait for today's supposedly objective investigative journalists to unearth stories like those, the public will never hear them.
"It's not an issue of whether investigative journalists, whether liberal or conservative, will feel obliged to report evidence that casts their philosophical friends in a bad light. Most of them will do so if they uncover something big. They are hard-wired to break news and get the scoop. The problem is that too many of today's watchdogs can't see the newsworthiness of certain topics because of their liberal worldview. The ClimateGate and ACORN scandals prove that. It never occurred to liberal investigators to question the heroes of global-warming theory or community activism because they identify with the causes and thus are skeptical of anyone who questions them."
