Metamars, I'm curious to know your feelings of truthers who implicate journalists in the 9/11 coverup. You do realize why people that are being accused of murdering over 3000 people are a little hestitant to help you out?
Obviously, any journalist who doesn't agree with the accusation will be outraged, regardless of what they believe really went down on 911. That's not contradictory - a journalist may suspect MIHOP, e.g., but knows his/her boss would never countenance them spending their time on this, spike any stories suggesting MIHOP, and maybe get fired, in the end, just for trying. Of course, if the journalist believes Condoleeza Rice's lie that "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." - in other words, not mega-OOPS, but just OOPS - then they will be even more incensed.
Rather more likely, I believe, is that journalists will internalize the values of their professional environment, as described by Noam Chomsky in
Necessary Illusions - Thought Control in Democratic Societies. See pp. 10 - 12, where Chomsky describes journalists often meeting very high standards, the problem being "choice of topics and highlighting of issues, the range of opinion permitted expression, the unquestioned premises that guide reporting and commentary, and the general framework imposed for the presentation of a certain view of the world".
Oh, the irony of Chomsky not applying such an analysis to 911 matters. Why bother, since, according to Chomsky, the issues raised by 911 Truthers is based on "rumors"! (Implying that there's nothing more.) But I digress.
Such a properly indoctrinated journalist is also likely to be outraged, since they will treat the very premise as a total lie.
William Pepper reported that reporters he talked to regarding the MLK trial frankly told him that they wouldn't report the full truth because it would "cost them their jobs". So, considering how many journalists there are and different media outlets, it's also got to be the case that there are LIHOP'ers and MIHOP'ers amongst them, but they are keeping their mouths shut, for fear of losing their jobs. If you told a journalist such as this that they are helping to cover up a mass murder, they may agree with you, and then (correctly) point out that there's not a lot that they can do about it, unless they're willing to risk their job, and they likely would never get printed before they got the axe, anyway.
In short, the answer depends on the journalist, but even enumerating likely cases give no cause for believing that 911 Truther's are helping their case by making such accusations. I suppose you might find an occasional journalist who is not indoctrinated, believes in either LIHOP or MIHOP, is willing to suffer the consequences of bucking the system (which will be painful, financially and professionally), but plunges in, despite everything. You know, prodded by a 911 Truther who's shamed them by accusations of participating in a coverup.
A question: How long will such a journalist last? If they're financially like most Americans, probably not too long. Which is one reason that I am calling for crowd-
funding of investigative journalists. Any activist notion which ignores financial realities is shooting itself in the foot.
Another problem is access. Evidence is often held by the (corrupt) government. Even journalists
in the system can't get access. Who in their right mind thinks that the Pentagon, e.g., will turn over it's videos of whatever hit it to an independent journalist, and not turn it over to the NY Times? Even our hypothetical, completely ethical, non-indoctrinated journalist will not have a free run of evidence, even if he/she should win the Lotto and not have to worry about feeding his/her family.
So, the greatest opportunity lies in something like the gumshoe work of a Daniel Hopsicker. The government can hide evidence, but hiding
people is another matter. I think Hopsicker has claimed that the
names of the German couple who helped Atta get to Germany have still not been made public.* I find it hard to believe that gumshoe work cannot ferret out this information, as well as additional information about their associates.
A far more interesting question would regard completely independent journalists who are not beholden to power, and financially completely independent. Two that I can think of are Greg Palast (I don't think he draws a salary, anymore, from a UK paper, but I'm not really sure) and Gary Null.
Greg Palast, AFAIK, just believe in OOPS, and has called Professor Jones a "fruitcake". Gary Null, OTOH, has stated on air (IIRC) that the air defence response was so poor that it had to have been tampered with, and he did have Mike Ruppert on as a guest. I don't know what his position is, nowadays, and I don't think he's done any original investigative reporting on the subject, like Daniel Hopsicker. Considering all of the big players and corruption that Gary Null regularly takes on, it would be absurd to accuse him of helping in a coverup. E.g., he once had a series of 1 hour radio programs, consisting about roughly 50 segments, on the JFK assassination. As he puts it, "there is so much evidence of a conspiracy that you could drive a truck through it". Definitely not your knee-jerk conspiracy-denier.... So, the right question to put to Gary Null is probably "if you haven't done any investigative reporting into the 911 conspiracy, what are you waiting for?"
OTOH, if you told Palast that he was helping in a coverup, he'd probably call you a fruitcake.
* I'm embarrassed to say I've forgotten, already, but don't want to check it out, right now.
) you know "arabs in caves" and all that stuff.
