In an excerpt from his new book, The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark, Dean Starkman contrasts accountability journalism with access journalism. Perhaps the best way to distinguish between the two is that one form of journalism seeks access to power and the other kind of journalism seeks to make power uncomfortable. We all know which one is losing. Mike Allen loves the powerful and does all he can to broadcast their messages and stroke their egos. He is the icon of the new era of court stenographers masquerading as journalists. But if you’re looking for a journalism that holds the powerful accountable, you’ll have to look outside their circle of supine friends and suck-ups.
CJR’s editors chime in:
This debate is not about the use of hot words, like “torture.” It’s about whether journalism perceives as its core mission holding power to account. If it doesn’t, then the DealBooks and Playbooks of the world will always win the day. If it does, then the access-accountability polarity should be the defining measure of journalism’s merits.
Oh, for the days of disreputable hacks. No media elite dinners for them.
The Dish 