Roger L. Simon is engaging in some excellent investigatory journalism by following the myriad connections in the UN Oil-for-Food scandal. He’s been diligently investigating the timeline of contacts between Annan’s son Kojo, his company Cotecna, and the former Iraqi regime and has come up with names, places, and dates to help nail down exactly what happened and who was responsible.
Simon is doing what the mainstream media used to pride itself on doing — getting to the bottom of the story. However, the media’s love affair with the UN has prevented the kind of in-depth reportage that this story warrants. We’re dealing with one of the biggest financial scandals of all time that involves a major world figure, and the media doesn’t seem to care much. If a third of the time spent on crap like the Michael Jackson trial were spent on actually covering stories that matter, perhaps the American populace wouldn’t be so woefully uninformed. However, so long as the media sits with its ideological blinders on, we can all be thankful that real journalists like Claudia Rosett and Roger L. Simon are doing what Peter Jennings and Wolf Blitzer should be doing.
I applaud your point but think your math is flawed. If the press spent 33% more of its time covering substantive issues like the UN scandal, and 33% less of its time covering “crap like the Michael Jackson trial,” what you would probably end up with is 33% decrease in readership/viewership, because while Roger Simon may be the next coming of Bob Woodward, he’s no Geraldo Rivera!