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Investigative reporter Dave Lindorff has important questions about role of security contractor at Boston bombing, gets the runaround; Robert Greenwald returns to talk about his new film, War on Whistleblowers.Lindorff has reported for over 40 years, and has published books, including The Case for Impeachment, co-authored with Barbara Olshansky. In this interview, Lindorff recounts his effort to perform basic journalism on the events in Boston on April 15. Almost immediately, photos surfaced of uniformed security personnel in a large black SUV at the bombing site; Lindorff identifies them as employees of Craft International, a military security firm. As he details in this article, he made phone calls like a beat reporter to all of the contacts who might know basic facts, like who hired Craft, what their purpose was, and how they participated in the investigation. Nobody gives him a straight answer, including Craft headquarters in Dallas.
We discuss the corporate media’s poor performance in covering this event and the manhunt that ensued, including John King of CNN’s big blunder, and how reporters today generally fail to apply basic skepticism to the information delivered or leaked by official sources. While we draw no conclusions from the information currently available, the stonewalling of Lindorff’s inquiries and the failure of mainstream media to even note the presence of Craft at the crime scene raise important questions that deserve credible answers.
At the 42-minute mark, we’re joined by the brilliant documentary filmmaker, Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films. His latest is War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State. The film profiles 4 recent whistleblowers in the national security arena: Thomas Drake of NSA, Michael DeKort–who worked for Lockheed Martin on a Coast Guard boondoggle, Pentagon consultant Franz Gayl–who fought for MRAPs to protect our troops in Iraq, and former Justice Dept. lawyer Thomas Tamm–who tipped the NY Times to the illegal wiretapping program. Greenwald offers a free DVD to any listener who will hold a screening for friends.