Not too long ago longtime NPR correspondent Andrea Seabrook left NPR because she was tired of colluding in the daily process of reporting the lies that elected officials tell:

I realized that there is a part of covering Congress, if you’re doing daily coverage, that is actually sort of colluding with the politicians themselves because so much of what I was doing was actually recording and playing what they say or repeating what they say [a]nd I feel like the real story of Congress right now is very much removed from any of that, from the sort of theater of the policy debate in Congress, and it has become such a complete theater that none of it is real. … I feel like I am, as a reporter in the Capitol, lied to every day, all day. There is so little genuine discussion going on with the reporters. … To me, as a reporter, everything is spin.

Read the rest of her story here.
Seabrook’s new project is called DecodeDC which is her effort to report on the stories that should be covered on Capitol Hill. DecodeDC, a blog and podcast, hopes to decipher Washington’s Byzantine language and procedure, sweeping away what doesn’t matter so listeners and readers can focus on what does.
DecodeDC is running a KickStarter campaign to raise money for programming for a year. So far they are 1/3 of the way there.
We’re all for greater depth in reporting and helping people to cut through the crap to get at what politicians are actually saying. In this respect knowledge is power and if DecodeDC can put more knowledge in the hands of the people, we enthusiastically support.
  1. votifi posted this