steve waas

Jay has a superb piece on how Murray Waas is a much more important and useful journalist today than Bob Woodward. Rosen even goes so far as to dance around the claim that Woodward isn't really a journalist anymore, but an insider.

I don't hobnob with Bob Woodward or his ilk, and I mostly spend time with journalists and operatives with much less clout. What I've noticed is that there is this weird phenomenon in DC, where some political journalists like to consider themselves both closet strategists and independent truth-tellers without an ax to grind. That attitude just doesn't hold water. What Murray Waas does strikes me as structurally different; he pores through documents, learns everything there is to know, and works sources to find out how decisions are made. Waas is relentless, and he's focused on the big picture. And eRiposte and Firedoglake are right there chewing through Murray Waas' reporting, a kind of adjunct institutional memory.

Murray Waas is a neutral reporter. FDL and the Left Coaster aren't. Regardless, how is political bias related to credibility? If ou are liberal or conservative, are you an automatic liar? Does it color what you look for so that you are no longer reliable? With all the 'liberal bias' screeching, I've never heard a good answer to this question.