On May 1st, I watched the annual White House Correspondents dinner and squirmed. It reminded me of the sense of self-importance that invades the pysches of most reporters—especially the Washington press corps. New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich wrote about the dinner this week. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/opinion/09rich.html

Rich doesn’t dwell on the why of such events. But I have to wonder about the tradition of reporters sucking up to politicians, movie stars and an array of celebrities that attend these dinners as guests—most notably the President. And remarkably, when he takes a couple of gentle digs at the media, as Obama did this year, journalists sit with forced smiles. For reasons that escape me, a majority of reporters believe their profession should be exempt from criticism by people they write about. As I wrote in Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, investigative reporting is an exception to this rule.

Investigative reporting is the only craft I know in which practitioners celebrate being called assholes. This aberrant appreciation of verbal assaults used to be quite evident at annual conventions sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors, known as IRE.

During four days of narcissistic displays of braggadocio, muckrakers shared secrets of winning big awards, pissing off people and acquiring rectal identities. Between workshops and seminars, reporters prowled hotel corridors, bars, and reception areas to beguile one another with accounts of their journalism heroics―gloating about reputations they tarnished, folks they sent to jail, lawsuits filed against them, and the number of people who honored them with nasty epithets. A perverse pride in quantifying success in terms of loathsome nicknames was a sign of an arrogant sense of infallibility that characterized many investigative reporters.

To reinforce egos, mud-slingers presented awards to one another each year. Prize-winners fondled the trophies when beset with doubts about the virtue of their vocation. As an early award-fondling IRE member, as well as a former member of the organization’s Board of Directors, my critique of the muckraker psyche is a confession of personal flaws, rather than a blanket condemnation of the imperfections of investigative reporters. Still, I observed my own shortcomings in a lot of journalists, who deemed themselves qualified to act as judges, juries and character assassins.

The IRE acronym supposedly  reflects a mindset of members. But it has become a misnomer. Most muckrakers only get mildly irritated nowadays. In the wake of media consolidation, old-fashioned scandal-mongering that sent people to jail has diminished to a point of invisibility―especially on television.

In my 30 year career as an investigative reporter, I attended dozens of journalism events and awards banquets. Indeed, I eventually became the first in my family to ever buy a tuxedo, instead of renting. Admittedly, I enjoyed strutting around as a prize-winning journalist. Awards pretty much defined my career. Still, I felt increasingly uneasy at these gatherings.

Among the most pretentious events early in my career was the New England Emmy presentations that began while I was Director of Investigative Reporting for Boston’s ABC affiliate. In fact, my awards category opened the ceremony, which was locally televised—no doubt causing a mad rush to the remote control by viewers when they learned their regular Saturday evening programming was pre-empted. After my name was announced as the winner for outstanding investigative reporting, I became the first person to receive a New England Emmy. So what did I say as I gazed out over a room of tuxedoed journalists and their guests? Rather than thank Mr. Tuxedo rental agency for my outfit, I mumbled the same bullshit that we hear at all these occasions. “Thanks to colleagues, wives, children, dogs, etc.

Twenty years or so later, my wife and I are in New York City for the national Emmy presentations for news. My CNN reporting on Whitewater had been nominated in the investigative reporting category. Afterwards, I told her that it was the last such event I would attend. The fact that I failed to win had no influence on the decision. It was a simple matter of looking around the room and seeing the national media for what it was—a bunch of of self-important characters, who spent an inordinate amount of time celebrating themselves. And yes, me too.

And that is why I squirmed while watching the White House Correspondents Dinner. The job of journalists is to gather news. Although sucking up to potential sources is an unpleasant part of the job description, there should be limits on the level of humiliation that reporters are willing to accept. Kissing peoples asses on national television goes too far.

As Frank Rich noted in his column, there was a much better way for reporters to spend that particular Saturday night. Manhattan was in near panic because of an attempted car bombing.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.       

Inside journalism circles there is much weeping, wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth over the National Enquirer’s Pulitzer Prize nomination for an exposé of John Edward’s loose zipper. As someone who built an investigative reporter career based on journalism prizes, I say, “Who gives a flying…whatever?”

I evolved over 30 years of muckraking from reporter to ”investigative” reporter to “award winning” investigative reporter to “Peabody” award winning investigative reporter  to “four-time” Peabody award winning investigative reporter to ”retired” four time Peabody award winning investigative reporter. At various junctures, all the above phrases were used in job-seeking letters and various other capacities—including egotistical boasts about my prowess as a journalist.

But the fact of the matter is I didn’t deserve all (emphasis on all) the accolades, which is easy to say since I no longer send résumés to prospective employers. Indeed, these days my boasting is confined to Facebook, mass e-mails, my website, this blog, book peddling in radio and TV interviews, during personal appearances and in conversations with everyone in earshot. Why? Because the prizes give me a sense of legitimacy.

And legitimacy is what the National Enquirer seeks. That ain’t going to happen, whether it receives the Pulitzer or not. The weekly tabloid will continue to be a supermarket curiosity that features blazing headlines to  titillate shoppers standing in line at check-out stands. Who among us has not been tempted to buy the Enquirer after seeing a particularly provocative headline? I’m reasonably certain I have bought an issue, though I don’t know when and why. Maybe it was after I received a $50.00 check from the Enquirer.

 An Enquirer reporter had contacted me about some aspect of the Jimmy Swaggart sex scandals. My recollection is that I was not much help. Surprisingly, though, a check arrived a few days later and I faced the dilemma of taking money from a trashy tabloid. I considered my options for at least a full minute before racing to the bank to cash the windfall.

Anyway, regardless of what pointy-head journalism professors and self-righteous reporters say, I believe the Enquirer deserves a Pulitizer. The damning pictures and accompanying stories about John Edwards knocking up a woman who worked for his Presidential campaign significant. It is not comparable to the Washington Post’s Watergate reporting by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Still,  the Enquirer’s enterprise exposed the hypocrisy of a leading candidate and even the possible misuse of campaign funds.

In my mind, that fits the definition of investigative reporting, although a better definition would be ”investigative skulking.” The reporters nailed down the story by staking out the offices of obstetricians and a hotel lobby where Edwards was photographed before and after a visit with his paramour.

In my early days as an “investigative reporter, skulking was a television speciality. The first two Peabody medallions I collected were for secretly collecting video in Miami while concealed in a “snoop van.”  My initial spying adventure caught south Florida’s top state prosecutor and a prominent judge meeting on a weekly basis with bookies, who had close ties to notorious mobster Meyer Lansky. My reporting consisted of learning about the meetings from law enforcement sources, then sitting in the back of the van in a shopping center parking lot for several Saturdays as a photographer filmed the encounters. I expended a little bit more effort in documenting the story by tracking the gamblers back to meetings with Lansky.

By primitive television investigative reporting standards, my reporting and the video passed for high art. So much so that TV Guide did a lengthy article praising me and reporters at other Miami stations for our innovative skulking.  

My second Peabody was also a  result of spying—this time on so-called mafia racketeers. My enterprise consisted of adding pictures to law enforcement intelligence reports that were leaked to me. Again, I spent considerable time in the back of a van, as well as going out on my own with a hand-held camera to catch the bad guys on film. In retrospect, neither of my early “investigative” stories would warrant consideration for major journalism prizes today. Despite these disparaging comments about two of my Peabody awards, both remain displayed on the wall of my office. I never considered returning them to sender.

More deserving were my third and fourth Peabody awards—one for an investigative documentary about TV preacher Jimmy Swaggart’s financial dealings and his spiritual manipulation of followers, the other a documentary exposing the corrupt dealings between Louisiana’s Insurance Commissioner and a company he was supposed to regulate. The regulator and executives of the insurance company all went to prison.

These kind of results are an important consideration in awarding journalism prizes. There is no doubt that the National Enquirer  investigation of John Edwards got results, even though the mainstream media was slow to acknowledge the truth of the stories. Now that we know the truth, I hope the Pulitizer panel will give the tabloid its just reward.

In today’s journalism environment, the threshhold of legitimacy has sunk so low that anything deserves award consideration if it goes beyond the speculation of idiot pundits and the opinions expressed by airhead anchors and correspondents. 

I have deliberately omitted the “F” word because bad journalism applies to every television network.

The Washington Post reported this week that three highly respected investigative journalists—one of whom is a longtime good friend—were hired by the Church of Scientology to review stories published in the St. Petersburg Times.  The newspaper has long been a thorn in the side of the cult-like church, even winning a Pulitizer three decades ago for its Scientology exposés. My knee-jerk reaction was to trash the three reporters for acting as hired guns on behalf of the controversial organization.

But contempt before investigation is an inherent danger of journalism among reporters, who are under the influence of toxic cynicism. And I was falling into the that trap, even though my knowledge of  Scientology is only slightly above zilch. I’ve read stories about the weirdness of the so-called religion and some of its worshipers, or what ever the hell they are called. Listening to Tom Cruise babble about Scientology is enough to re-enforce my sense of bafflement abut what the church stands for. 

“A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology.”

That is the goal of the church as outlined by L. Ron Hubbard—science fiction author and founder of Scientology. Obviously, the movement has failed to achieve its aims. Instead, it has been at the center of controversy for years. Scientology was stripped of its “church’” designation by the Internal Revenue Service, but still qualifies as a tax exempt not-for-profit organization. Over the years, it has been target of criminal investigations, members have been convicted of illegal activities, scores of lawsuits have been litigated, and reporters and critics claim to have been harrassed and threatened by Scientologists.

Based on past history, my negative reaction to top journalists cashing Scientology pay checks in advance of an investigation of the St. Petersburg Times stories is understandable. How could they? A stupid question since I haven’t a clue about the substance, quality and reliability of the newspaper’s exposés. The team hired by Scientology may have ascertained that the stories completely accurate. If so, the corroboration may never see the light of day. My understanding is the review has been completed and turned over to the church, which has no obligation to make it public.

Two veteran reporters—Pulitizer Prize winner, Russell Carollo, and former 60 Minutes producer, Christopher Szechenyi, an Emmy-winner—conducted the study. My longtime friend, Steve Weinberg, was hired by Carollo and Szechenyi to edit the final report. He is a prize-winning author and the former Executive Director of the 3000 member professional organization,  Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). As a matter of personal disclosure, I was a member of IRE’s Board of Directors several years ago. And I have a great deal of respect for Steve and his judgment. 

Having said that, let me add a couple of words about the propriety of  mainstream journalists working for organizations of ill repute. Why not?  Investigative reporters frequently enter into unholy alliances. My close relationship with notorious drug smuggler Barry Seal is still being criticized more than two decades after his assassination by a Colombian hit team. Despite the criticism, I’m confident that I maintained my journalistic integrity in dealings with Seal, as well as with scoundrel sources in other stories I reported.

What is wrong with targets of investigations hiring journalists to vet the reporting of other newsmen? Nothing. At least as far as I’m concerned.  The news media is not, and should not, be exempt from scrutiny. Any story that can’t stand up under intense examination should never be reported in print or on television in the first place. 

During 30 years of digging dirt, the truth and accuracy of many of my stories were challenged by targets of the exposés, in lawsuits and by a lot of people with axes to grind. Fortunately, I never lost a libel case. Nor did I have to retract any allegations made in my stories. This is not a claim of perfection. In retrospect, my spin on some stories could have been different. But that is more a reflection of my changing attitudes toward certain types of non-criminal misconduct. Everybody makes bad decisions.

Investigative reporting is an imperfect craft. Mistakes happen.And errors should be immediately corrected. Much of my book, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is devoted to exposing egregious inaccuracies that were never corrected by mainstream news organizations like the New York Times, Washington Post and CBS News. 

The St. Petersburg Times refused to cooperate with the reporters scrutinizing its Scientology stories. Editors claim the study will be used to discredit the newspaper. Executive Editor Neil Brown is quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “Candidly, I was surprised and disappointed that journalists who I understand to have an extensive background in investigative reporting would think it’s appropriate to ask me or our news organization to talk about (our) reporting while (a) it’s ongoing, and (b) while they’re being paid to ask these questions by the very subjects of our reporting.” 

If there is ongoing reporting of a confidential nature, I can understand Brown’s objection. But if previously published stories are accurate, they should be fair game for scrutiny, regardless of who is paying the freight. Supposedly, there is a safeguard that prohibits the Church of Scientology from quoting the study out of context. Steve Weinberg says the contract requires the church publish the study in full, if it decides to make it public at all. 

So what’s the big deal about paying Weinberg, et al? Fox News pays pundits big bucks to tell lies. It’s okay with me if bona fide reporters are paid to tell the truth. And I hope the truth is that the St. Petersburg Times has kicked ass in an honorable fashion.

I was going to write today about Fox “News” being the “most trusted” source of information—linking the cable network’s success and that of the so-called tea-partiers to Huey P. Long, Ross Perot and the Ku Klux Klan. That will have to be Monday’s topic.  

My wife, Annette, points out that I failed to answer a question raised in my previous post: “How did I become an investigative reporter”? Given past transgressions, readers may wonder how I had the audacity to begin casting stones at others. I have asked the same question many times.

Anyway, when I left off yesterday, I was checking out of a halfway house in the first week of February—jobless, wifeless and broke. Louisiana radio station executives were not lining up to hire me and I didn’t have bus fare to leave the state. Indeed, my reputation preceded me when I launched a job search. I was known as a reporter who sometimes delivered the news in unknown tongues while under the influence of liquid spirits.

 Following four weeks of rejections, I was about to abandon broadcasting to train as a clerk in a convenience store. However, I was rescued from a career of dispensing cash to hooded customers armed with weapons. A man named, Lew Carter, saved my career. He was the manager of WXOK, then Baton Rouge’s only station soley and souly programmed for a black audience. WXOK was under pressure from the FCC to supplement its cash-for-trash format with news and public affairs. Lew needed someone to set-up by a news department and he offered me the job—with a restriction.

“Can you stay sober,” he asked. What the hell was I going to say? I assured him that my drinking days were over. It was the same broken promise I made many times before to my wife, children, parents and bosses. At least I was now sober for awhile. But “one day at a time” had been hammered into my head. In March, 1971, I debuted as WXOK’s only white on-air personality. Fortunately, I fulfilled my promise to Lew by staying sober.

Nine months later, the rumor of my sobriety reached the manager of WJBO, the guy who fired me as News Director and talk show host following a drunken two a.m. call telling him what to do with his radio station. My successor at WJBO had resigned to become Governor J. Bennett Johnston’s Press Secretary. So I was rehired to fill my old job, only to learn a few days later that there would be no Governor Johnston. In a political upset, he was defeated by Edwin Edwards.

WJBO now had two News Directors and hosts of the daily talk show. The station improvised. I was given a new title of Director of Special Projects. I relinquished my job doing the talk show—happily. Three years of the Larry King type gig was enough for me. But the show had taught me interviewing skills that would form the foundation of my investigative reporting career.

As WJBO’s Director of Special Projects, I began searching for projects that were special. In the first few months of 1972, I produced documentaries about Angola penitentiary, and poverty in Baton Rouge—a report with particular emphasis on the myth of welfare Cadillacs. I also followed leads that provided enterprise stories for our daily newscasts, including a few reports that were quite substantive. That’s when serendipity intervened.

A lawyer friend suggested I look into Small Business Administration loans handled by a bank with close ties to U.S. Senator Russell Long. I never tied Long to wrongdoing. However, I uncovered a scheme in which bank officers paid a $100-thousand bribe to a Louisiana state official, who arranged the deposit of millions of dollars into non-interest bearing accounts. In the course of my investigation, I followed an extensive paper trail, had back alley meetings with a secret source, tracked a former bank executive to Central America, and eventually elicited a startling confession from the bank’s President. The story won the Radio Television News Directors International Award for Investigative Reporting.

By coincidence, the bank bribery story aired within hours of an event in Washington D.C.—the burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate office building. In the following months as I accepted accolades for the bank story and other disclosures, the Watergate scandal made investigative reporting an honorable business. And in March, 1973—just fifteen months after I stopped drinking—I was hired as the chief muckraker for Miami, Florida’s NBC television station. Thus began a thirty year career with stops in Miami, Boston, New York City, CNN in Atlanta and  far beyond any professional achievements I hoped for when Lew Carter rescued me from a possible future of clerking in a convenience store.

My success as an investigative reporter is closely connected to my sobriety. An underlying principle of the 12-step program that has kept me sober for 39 years is self-honesty—learning the truth about myself, which is still in process. Uncovering “truth” is also a principle of investigative reporting. Indeed, the only purpose.

I hope that answers the question of how I became a muckraker.

So much for “citizen journalism.” James O’Keefe, the 25 year old conservative activist who became a right-wing pin-up boy for his “revelations” about ACORN, was arrested in New Orleans yesterday for tampering with telephones in the office of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu. Also charged were three of O’Keefe’s pals, including the son of the acting U.S. Attorney for Louisiana’s Western District. Two of the young men posed as telephone repairmen to gain access to Landrieu’s phones. O’Keefe recorded the idiocy on his cellular phone.

The self-professed investigative reporter was in New Orleans to speak to the Pelican Institute, a libertarian think tank. That raises the question, “What the hell was he thinking about.” O’Keefe first gained fame—or infamy depending on one’s point of view—as the result of heavily edited undercover video in which ACORN representatives were questioned about obtaining federal funds for a whore house. The victims of the farce claimed they treated the inquiry as a joke. However, that portion of the undercover video was never shown. ACORN’s primary function has been to register African American voters. Attacks on the organization have always had a tinge of racism and/or bigotry.

The underlying purpose for bugging Senator Landrieu’s phones is still a mystery. The Democrat was embroiled in a recent controversy after getting a $500-million amendment to the pending  Health Care bill to compensate Louisiana for a Medicaid shortfall stemming from a population shift in the wake of Hurrican Katrina.

The news release announcing James O’Keefe’s speaking engagement before the Pelican Institute stated he was “a pioneer in new media and effective investigative reporting.” It strikes me as strange that wing-nuts like O’Keefe, who operate under the banner of “law and order,” have no respect for law and order. Watching these guys encourages me to invest in straight-jackets and drool cups. There will come a day when lunatics overwhelm asylums.

There is a bit of personal irony in the guise that was used to penetrate the Landrieu’s field office. When I collectecd my first Peabody medallion many years ago in Miami, I used a lot of undercover video  of bookies meeting with public officials. Most of the film was shot from the rear of a vehicle painted in the same colors as a Southern Bell telephone truck. Indeed, one of my producers was dressed as a telephone repairman while getting photographs of mobster Meyer Lansky during a breakfast meeting at a Miami Beach restaurant. Details are included in my book. In short, the difference between my undercover foray and the O’Keefe crew of idiots is that I did not break the law. 

I hope other “citizen journalists” learn a lesson from the telephone tampering incident. O’Keefe’s next investigative reporting lecture may be from prison.

In Part Two of my Edwin Edwards comments, I stated, “Let him go.”  In this final installment of my screed, I must note that his release will not be based on humility. The first 346 pages of  a recently released “authorized” biography written by my friend, Leo Honeycutt, reads like a nomination for the former Governor’s sainthood. I remember him differently.

During Edwards four terms as Louisiana’s chief executive—two that I have  hands-on knowledge—he whines about being persecuted by political enemies, prosecutors and the news media, me included. The final 200 pages of the biography provides details  of events leading to his imprisonment in a federally sponsored time-share facility. Indeed, Edwards has grounds  to complain in this instance. In my opinion, he was a victim of ambitious prosecutors, a pill-popping hanging  judge, FBI agents with selective hearing, and a jury under pressure to convict regardless of the evidence. The miscarriage of justice that he and many others perceive is apparently the rationale used by Edwards to justify every ethical violation—moral and otherwise—and borderline criminal act he committed prior to the trial. For the most part, he refuses to concede past mistakes.  Even so, he is now a harmless old man and the good he did as Governor outweighs his sins. The prison gates should have swung open for him long ago.

In contrast to his self-justification, I encountered someone a couple of days ago who could give Edwards lessons in partaking of humble pie. It was one of those encounters when my muckraking past collided with the present, which has often happened since my 2004 return to Louisiana. I was signing copies of Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger that were being restocked at Cottonwood Books in Baton Rouge when a guy I recognized  walked into the store. I couldn’t put a name with the face until store owner Danny Plaisance  greeted him as, “Naaman.”  How could I forget? It was Naaman Eicher.

In 1989, my investigative stories were a major factor in putting him and his daddy, John, in a federal prison for four years. Naaman’s wife, step-mother and two sisters served lesser terms. I had never met Naaman or other members of the family—mainly because of their refusal to grant interviews prior to my exposé, a one-hour report that earned me a fourth Peabody medallion.  The main target of my story was Insurance Commissioner Douglas Green. I revealed that Eicher-owned Champion Insurance Company laundered $2-million dollars into Green’s election campaign in order to keep their insolvent $100-million a year automobile insurance firm in business. After Champion’s collapse, Green was convicted of multiple counts of malfeasance  and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

While introducing myself to Naaman at the bookstore, I braced to have him take a swing at me. Surprisingly, he smiled and shook hands. In effect, he said, “No hard feelings.” Instead of anger and justification, Naaman suggested he got what he deserved—that it had been a wake-up call teaching him life lessons he needed to learn. As I wrote in my gonzo memoir, I’ve had to digest large portions of humble pie. But each slice was important in changing the course of my life. Following our conversation, Naaman asked me to inscribe my book, a chapter of which gives details of the Champion debacle. I wrote, “To Naaman Eicher, who helped me win a Peabody award.”

I should have added that unlike Edwin Edwards, Naaman was willing to take responsibility for past mistakes. For all of us, it is difficult to do .