Justice-Integrity.org

The criminal justice system is supposed to be clear-cut, like the old cowboy movies. The law enforcers wear the “white hats” as New Orleans radio host Tommy Tucker of WWL-AM told me on his show May 16. The "bad guys" wear the black hats.

But things are not so simple in real life. Several recent allegations of serious misconduct in New Orleans show why. 

Tucker, whose CBS-affiliate show is broadcast at 50,000-watts through five Gulf states, finds it "immoral"  that federal prosecutors apparently hid evidence as they convicted four New Orleans policemen of covering up their wrongful killing of four Hurricane Katrina victims in 2005. The police defendants this week demanded a new trial.

Separately, a senior federal prosecutor based in the city has confessed to authoring more than 500 anonymous web commentaries on civic affairs. Many of his harsh comments under the name "Henry L. Mencken1951" sought to shape public opinion in unprofessional ways about his own cases, colleagues, judges or defendants.

Tucker invited me on his show to ask: How serious are such irregularities? How common are they?

Very serious and very common, I responded, citing a six-month USA Today investigative report published in 2010 documenting 201 cases nationwide where federal judges had found law-breaking or similar serious misconduct since 1997 by federal prosecutors, who are supposed to be the elite among law-enforcers. Much of this involved suppressing evidence that defendants were supposed to receive pretrial that might help them prove their innocence. Similarly, the self-righteous, secretive anger suggested by the "Mencken" comments is not uncommon among law-enforcers in our Justice Integrity Project experience.

Attorney Gen. Eric Holder, left, refused to answer any USA Today's questions about its investigation. I noted that: Holder’s willingness to stone-wall such a major news organization thus illustrates the DOJ's horrid lack of accountability. These lapses and cover-ups occur under both Democratic and Republican leadership, and are nothing like the image of the "white hat" Justice Department I held when I covered it full-time as a newspaper reporter from 1976 to 1981. Tragically, the Department seems to be evolving toward a "win-at-any-cost mentality" far too often, with scant concern for accountability except if an aggrieved defendant is so fortunate as to land before a fair federal judge.

Some judges, like some prosecutors, care passionately about justice. Others demonstrably do not. But the system should not be a lottery for litigants.

Click here for the WWL interview, and see below for details on the misconduct allegations regarding New Orleans-based federal prosecutors.

My column May 6 about Dan Rather's ouster from CBS News in 2006 would have benefited from more analysis of network news economics. So let's dig deeper today.

The TV networks want us to believe they use the best and toughest reporters to break the most important stories.

Do they? Yes and no.

Sure, it's great for them to have a terrific reputation, win the highest ratings and charge more than rivals for advertising. So lots of effort goes into that. Uplifting ads are part of it, such as CNN's slogan, "The most trusted name in news!" This is from a news organization whose top news personality, Wolf Blitzer, got his start as PR director for one Washington's leading lobbying groups.

But the big bucks are in mergers, sales and other deal-making, especially by a network's corporate parent. These deals often run the risk of political or regulatory impediments, such as antitrust concerns. Little known to the public, television networks historically do not obtain a share of monthly cable subscription payments.

Hence the longtime tension between news-oriented reporters pushing for a big story -- and the corporate deal-makers. The latter understand that it's cheaper to buy a reputation than to earn one. That's particularly true if a story antagonizes political leaders who can brutally punish the parent company. Most viewers are far too busy to know what they're missing. Many prefer pseudo-news and entertainment to hard news anyway.

That's the central drama of Dan Rather's new memoir, Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News. Near the end, he summarizes the impressive array of companies owned by Viacom, the parent company of CBS at the time. "In that lineup," he then concludes, "CBS News was about as important as a nit on a gnat's nut." Drawing on long experience, he fears that voters and consumers are increasingly victimized by unaccountable government leaders and their profit-focused political supporters who run conglomerates.

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves” is the apt saying attributed to CBS News legend Edward R. Murrow, shown at left. Murrow, a hero to Rather and his generation for gutsy news coverage, was himself eased out from CBS News even when the network was still run by civic giants.

Dan Rather has written an important, chilling and entertaining new memoir all at once.

Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News works on several levels. For one, it’s his passionate insider’s account of how CBS News forced him out as anchor and managing editor in 2004, potentially affecting the election that fall since the significance of his story was lost in the reccriminations against reporters. His contract was not renewed in 2006, thereby ending his CBS career after his 44 years of service. His words:

Why was I out as CBS News? Because I reported a true story. The story I reported in September 2004 of President George W. Bush’s dereliction of duty during Vietnam is true, and neither Bush himself no anyone close to him – no family member, no confidante, no political ally – has ever denied it.

The book succeeds also because he shows how a CBS News sellout of the public interest fits a much larger pattern, one that threatens democracy itself. In this, his fears match our coverage here at the Justice Integrity Project the past two weeks. We have reported extensively, as here, on those fighting this horrid trend. Dedicated journalists  and courageous whistle-blowers stand at the forefront of this movement. In 1987, I wrote the book Spiked about these trends, and have closely studied the process since. Rather's analysis is dead on.

Finally, Rather provides his readers powerful first-person insights on momentous news events from more than half a century of reporting. He weaves them into his personal journey that began during his youth in Texas. As the traditional news business fades and fragments, we are not likely to see anyone else from such modest roots who personally covered so many history-shaping events.

Therefore, civic-minded news consumers -- especially those open to evidence, not just conventional wisdom -- will find great value in his book. But it contains important lessons also for anyone suddenly out of work, or who hopes that a lawsuit will rectify an injustice. Sadly, we hear at our Project from many forlorn litigants in both civil and criminal cases. Those who rely on the justice system can benefit from learning how the system treats someone of Rather's stature and resources when he goes up against those even more powerful.

The nation’s two leading press clubs convened experts on national security May 1 in Washington for a gripping, historically important assessment of the Obama administration’s shocking prosecutions of government news sources.

The administration took office on promises to protect whistle-blowers. But it has since repeatedly cracked down on leakers, citing the Espionage Act in six recent cases as a basis for criminal prosecution.

New York Times reporter James Risen has broken some of the most important national security stories of the decade. He was one of the panelists at the National Press Club, which organized the forum at its headquarters in cooperation with the New York-based Overseas Press Club. Risen has undergone years of financially damaging federal investigation and potential imprisonment for refusing to reveal his government sources.

“The fundamental issue,” said Risen, author of the path-breaking and still-indispensable 2006 book at right based on anonymous sources, “is whether you can have a democracy without aggressive reporting. I don’t think you can.”

More generally, the May 1 forum at the Press Club represented a significant commitment by Risen and others involved. Many in the political mainstream ignore the nation’s radical, ongoing cutbacks of historic constitutional rights. For fear of being branded as “soft on terror,” politicians from both major parties fear to examine emerging police-state practices on such matters as pervasive government wiretapping of ordinary citizens (as well as journalists) that would have deeply shocked the public before 9/11. Similarly, government-ordered torture, assassination, detention without charges, and vast waste in national security programs have been largely off-limits to congressional and other watchdog institutions. The exceptions are largely on a selective basis, typically to achieve talking points for short-term partisan purposes. Authorities have been reluctant to confirm (much less examine) drone warfare or the massive surveillance program of U.S. emails and phone calls, for example. But White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan this week publicly confirmed the drone program for the first time in an announcement whose timing complemented White House messaging on the anniversary of the bin Laden raid.

Reporters seeking to cover such matters face an especially daunting task. That’s because so much in the never-ending “war on terror” is now secret except what authorities want to announce for their own goals. We reported these trends in a series of columns last week, including DC News Workshop Preserves Lost Era of Press That Protected Public about the premiere of the Lewis-produced documentary.