Consortium News
| Independent investigative website founded by legendary muckraker Robert Parry. |
"Independent Investigative Journalism Since 1995"
Started: 1995
Founder: Robert Parry
Members: Elizabeth Vos, Joe Lauria,
Consortiumnews.com was founded in 1995 by investigative journalist Robert Parry as the first investigative news magazine on the Internet. Parry was best known for his role in covering the Iran-Contra affair for the Associated Press (AP) and Newsweek, including breaking the Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (CIA manual provided to the Nicaraguan contras) and the CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking in the U.S. scandal in 1985.
After Robert Parry's death on January 27, 2018, the site is continued with Joe Lauria as Editor-in-Chief. The site has a high caliber of writers, including John Pilger, Alexander Mercouris, Ray McGovern,Gareth Porter,Max Blumenthal, Caitlin Johnstone and many others. While it certainly is an excellent site covering government nefariousness, it does shy a little bit away from full coverage of the deeper aspects of politics.
Own words
As one of the reporters who helped expose the Iran-Contra scandal for The Associated Press in the mid-1980s, I was distressed by the silliness and propaganda that had come to pervade American journalism. I feared, too, that the decline of the U.S. press foreshadowed disasters that would come when journalists failed to alert the public about impending dangers.[1]
We also looked at the underlying problems of modern democracy, particularly the insidious manipulation of citizens by government propaganda and the accomplice role played by mainstream media. Rather than encouraging diversity in analyses especially on topics of war and peace, today’s mainstream media takes a perverse pride in excluding responsible, alternative views.
The major Western news outlets now conflate the discrete difficulties from made-up “fake news” and baseless “conspiracy theories” with responsible dissenting analyses. All get thrown into the same pot and subjected to disdain and ridicule.
We have seen travesties, such as legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh having to take his important story debunking the Obama administration’s claims about the Syria-Sarin case of 2013 to the London Review of Books because his normal outlets in the United States wouldn’t run his exposé.