BIG, BUFF AND BAD: POLICE ON STEROIDS

Police Juice Up on Steroids to Get ‘Edge’ on Criminals

Medical Experts Worry That Side Effects Can Impair Judgment, Cause Aggression and Brutality

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
ABC News

Oct. 18, 2007 —

Matthew, who asked that his name be changed for this article, had experimented with steroids in college. But it wasn’t until an enraged criminal swung a crowbar at his fellow officer that he knew he had to buff up on the job.

A six-year veteran of a Pennsylvania police force patrolling an area encroached upon by urban crime, Matthew and his partner struggled for nearly seven minutes to subdue the crazed youth, who was high on PCP and had another officer in a head lock.

Soon after that close call, Matthew turned to illegal anabolic steroids for both strength and self-esteem, a decision for which he paid a heavy price. Two years later, in 2005, he was caught and forced to resign. He spent 23 days in jail.

Matthew’s case is just one example in an increasing trend among urban police officers working tough beats. In New York City this week six police officers are being investigated for allegedly using illegal prescriptions to obtain anabolic steroids for bodybuilding.

According to law enforcement experts, Matthew is the prototypical steroid user: in his 30s, white and worried about competing. In Matthew’s case, he was trying to stay on top of a job that constantly forced him to face younger and stronger criminals.

“I look back on that and other scuffles, and I was not nearly as tough and strong as I once was,” said Matthew, now a 33-year-old single father.

“It scared me to think how easily things could go wrong,” said Matthew. “I kept thinking I am only getting older, and the criminals will always be young. I was looking for an edge.”

From Boston to Arizona, police departments are investigating a growing number of incidents involving uniformed police officers using steroids. So-called “juicing” has been anecdotally associated with several brutality cases, including the 1997 sodomizing of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in New York City.

Anabolic steroids are synthesized male sex hormones that promote muscle mass. When prescribed legally, medical steroids are used to treat growth problems in children, anemia and chronic infections like HIV.

Without a prescription, the use of anabolic steroids is illegal. Listed as a Schedule III substance along with morphine, opium and barbiturates, they can be just as psychologically addictive and dangerous.

Very little data are available on the number of adults who illegally use steroids, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, because most abusers end up in private doctors’ offices for depression or suicidal tendencies.

A common side effect of steroid use is violent, aggressive behavior that can contribute to poor judgment and even police brutality, according to medical experts.

Gene Sanders, a Spokane, Wash., police psychologist, estimates that up to 25 percent of all police officers in urban settings with gangs and high crime use steroids–if many of them defensively.

“How do I deal with people who are in better shape than me and want to kill me?” said Sanders, who worked as a street cop in Los Angeles in the 1970s and saw steroid use soar in the 1990s.

Steroid use is on the rise, and not just among weight lifters and other athletes. An estimated 2.7 percent of all high school seniors have used steroids at least once, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, many of them women.

In the police community, cultural acceptance of bodybuilding and access to online suppliers make it easier for officers to obtain steroids.

“Some of it is real and some of it is imagined on the part of the officers involved: fear, anxiety, wanting to do a better job,” said Sanders, who consults with physicians across the country as director of the Police Stress Institute.

The temptation to find a “quick fix” is always present, said Sanders. Several older studies have placed police officers at the “bottom of the fitness scale,” below firefighters and outranked by inmates, he said.

Typically, departments “turn a blind eye,” to steroid use, according to Sanders.

The International Association of Police Chiefs Association did not return calls for comment, but at least one of those being investigated in the New York City probe is a high-ranking officer, according to local news reports.

“The body feels really comfortable and likes [the hormones],” said Sanders. “You feel better, feel more buff and feel more able to take on the bad people.”

Indeed, Matthew felt the positive effects of steroids after only three months’ use. His weight jumped from 170 pounds to 192 pounds, and he was able to bench-press 300 pounds from 225 pounds.

His habit–500-700 milliliters a week injected into his deltoids, thighs or buttocks  cost about $500 a month.

“I was incredibly stronger,” he said. “I never felt healthier in my life and woke up full of energy and felt it throughout the day. Never once did I feel out of control.”

“Maybe I was a little edgier,” he added. “The kids got me upset a little more and I was less tolerant, but never to the point where I would physically do anyone harm.”

Still, said Sanders, steroid users tend to think “more is better” and don’t know where to draw the line as they build bulk. Users typically combine steroids with a combination of drugs in a phenomenon known as “stacking,” and “cycle” on and off the drugs to avoid building a tolerance.

“They can go from being calm and collected to raging bulls,” said Sanders. “There is also a subcategory of these folks like the crazy Vietnam veteran. They think that if they appear crazy, people will back off.”

But even short-term use of steroids can cause damage to brain tissue, which never grows back. And according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, steroid abuse can cause internal organ damage, jaundice and high blood pressure.

Men can also experience testicle shrinkage and breast development. Women can see side effects of facial hair growth, menstrual changes and a deepened voice. Teenagers may stop growing.

Research shows extreme mood swings can occur as a result of taking steroids, leading to violence. Users may suffer irritability, delusions and impaired judgment.

“When they are used in excess, the individual crosses the line from adding muscle mass to rage or aggression or suicide,” said Dr. Robert S. Gotlin, director of orthopaedic and sports rehabilitation at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. “Suppose that person is carrying a gun.”

“The results are so profound, and it’s so accessible,” he said.

In Matthew’s case, he obtained steroids from a friend. At least 10 other officers in his 75-member department were users when he started taking them. Steroids are readily accessible at gyms– “if you know the right people” and online, he said.

“When I first became a police officer, I worked out,” said Matthew. “As I got older, I ran into bigger kids on the street who were into all kinds of drugs. They don’t feel the pain. I thought if I could, I could have something to make me feel better about myself, I could handle it.”

Because of his felony conviction, Matthew, who had no previous criminal record before his arrest, will never be able to work in law enforcement again. But he hasn’t touched steroids since, primarily because he wants to be a role model to his children, who are 4 and 7.

Though he is proud of his 10 years of police work, Matthew now understands how steroids can create monsters out of police officers who are not responsible.

“There are rage issues,” he said. “And there’s the mental part of it that makes you think you are invincible.”

By Richard Kempton
Autonomedia, 2007
ISBN 9781570271816
$14.95
160 pages

Provo staged political and cultural interventions into the symbolic and everyday spaces of Holland from 1962–1967. In this first book-length English-language study of their history, Richard Kempton narrates the rise and fall of Provo from early Dutch “happenings” staged in 1962 to the “Death of Provo” in 1967. He chronicles Robert Jasper Grootveld’s anarchist anti-cancer campaign, the riots against Princess Beatrix’s marriage to an ex-Nazi, and the famous White Bicycle program. He also comments on parallel contemporary and near-contemporary movements (including Dada and Situationism), Amsterdam’s previous anarchist traditions, the spread of Provo through Holland and the development of the Kabouter party, and ends by offering an existentialist critique of Provo and other anarchist movements of the 1960s.

What they’re saying about Provo:

“This book is more than welcome. It begins to remedy the striking paucity of reading matter in English on the Provo movement—a movement with so many lessons, both positive and negative, for radicals today.” — Donald Nicholson-Smith, translator of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle

“Thanks to Kempton’s engaging history, Amsterdam’s Provos will careen into your heart on their white bicycles, toss you a chicken, and renew an anarchism that both provoked authority and promised a free and communal civic space.” — Cindy Milstein, Institute for Anarchist Studies

“Absurd and artistic as well as effective and influential, today’s Left could learn a lot from the Provo’s spirited anarchy.” — Stephen Duncombe, author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy

The Chronicle Review – From the issue dated December 14, 2007

The Polarization of Extremes
By CASS R. SUNSTEIN

In 1995 the technology specialist Nicholas Negroponte predicted the emergence of “the Daily Me” — a newspaper that you design personally, with each component carefully screened and chosen in advance. For many of us, Negroponte’s prediction is coming true. As a result of the Internet, personalization is everywhere. If you want to read essays arguing that climate change is a fraud and a hoax, or that the American economy is about to collapse, the technology is available to allow you to do exactly that. If you are bored and upset by the topic of genocide, or by recent events in Iraq or Pakistan, you can avoid those subjects entirely. With just a few clicks, you can find dozens of Web sites that show you are quite right to like what you already like and think what you already think.

Actually you don’t even need to create a Daily Me. With the Internet, it is increasingly easy for others to create one for you. If people know a little bit about you, they can discover, and tell you, what “people like you” tend to like — and they can create a Daily Me, just for you, in a matter of seconds. If your reading habits suggest that you believe that climate change is a fraud, the process of “collaborative filtering” can be used to find a lot of other material that you are inclined to like. Every year filtering and niche marketing become more sophisticated and refined. Studies show that on Amazon, many purchasers can be divided into “red-state camps” and “blue-state camps,” and those who are in one or another camp receive suitable recommendations, ensuring that people will have plenty of materials that cater to, and support, their predilections.

Of course self-sorting is nothing new. Long before the Internet, newspapers and magazines could often be defined in political terms, and many people would flock to those offering congenial points of view. But there is a big difference between a daily newspaper and a Daily Me, and the difference lies in a dramatic increase in the power to fence in and to fence out. Even if they have some kind of political identification, general-interest newspapers and magazines include materials that would not be included in any particular Daily Me; they expose people to topics and points of view that they do not choose in advance. But as a result of the Internet, we live increasingly in an era of enclaves and niches — much of it voluntary, much of it produced by those who think they know, and often do know, what we’re likely to like. This raises some obvious questions. If people are sorted into enclaves and niches, what will happen to their views? What are the eventual effects on democracy?

To answer these questions, let us put the Internet to one side for a moment and explore an experiment conducted in Colorado in 2005, designed to cast light on the consequences of self-sorting. About 60 Americans were brought together and assembled into a number of groups, each consisting of five or six people. Members of each group were asked to deliberate on three of the most controversial issues of the day: Should states allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions? Should employers engage in affirmative action by giving a preference to members of traditionally disadvantaged groups? Should the United States sign an international treaty to combat global warming?

As the experiment was designed, the groups consisted of “liberal” and “conservative” enclaves — the former from Boulder, the latter from Colorado Springs. It is widely known that Boulder tends to be liberal, and Colorado Springs tends to be conservative. Participants were screened to ensure that they generally conformed to those stereotypes. People were asked to state their opinions anonymously both before and after 15 minutes of group discussion. What was the effect of that discussion?

In almost every case, people held more-extreme positions after they spoke with like-minded others. Discussion made civil unions more popular among liberals and less popular among conservatives. Liberals favored an international treaty to control global warming before discussion; they favored it far more strongly after discussion. Conservatives were neutral on that treaty before discussion, but they strongly opposed it after discussion. Liberals, mildly favorable toward affirmative action before discussion, became strongly favorable toward affirmative action after discussion. Firmly negative about affirmative action before discussion, conservatives became fiercely negative about affirmative action after discussion.

The creation of enclaves of like-minded people had a second effect: It made both liberal groups and conservative groups significantly more homogeneous — and thus squelched diversity. Before people started to talk, many groups displayed a fair amount of internal disagreement on the three issues. The disagreements were greatly reduced as a result of a mere 15-minute discussion. In their anonymous statements, group members showed far more consensus after discussion than before. The discussion greatly widened the rift between liberals and conservatives on all three issues.

The Internet makes it exceedingly easy for people to replicate the Colorado experiment online, whether or not that is what they are trying to do. Those who think that affirmative action is a good idea can, and often do, read reams of material that support their view; they can, and often do, exclude any and all material that argues the other way. Those who dislike carbon taxes can find plenty of arguments to that effect. Many liberals jump from one liberal blog to another, and many conservatives restrict their reading to points of view that they find congenial. In short, those who want to find support for what they already think, and to insulate themselves from disturbing topics and contrary points of view, can do that far more easily than they can if they skim through a decent newspaper or weekly newsmagazine.

A key consequence of this kind of self-sorting is what we might call enclave extremism. When people end up in enclaves of like-minded people, they usually move toward a more extreme point in the direction to which the group’s members were originally inclined. Enclave extremism is a special case of the broader phenomenon of group polarization, which extends well beyond politics and occurs as groups adopt a more extreme version of whatever view is antecedently favored by their members.

Why do enclaves, on the Internet and elsewhere, produce political polarization? The first explanation emphasizes the role of information. Suppose that people who tend to oppose nuclear power are exposed to the views of those who agree with them. It stands to reason that such people will find a disproportionately large number of arguments against nuclear power — and a disproportionately small number of arguments in favor of nuclear power. If people are paying attention to one another, the exchange of information should move people further in opposition to nuclear power. This very process was specifically observed in the Colorado experiment, and in our increasingly enclaved world, it is happening every minute of every day.

The second explanation, involving social comparison, begins with the reasonable suggestion that people want to be perceived favorably by other group members. Once they hear what others believe, they often adjust their positions in the direction of the dominant position. Suppose, for example, that people in an Internet discussion group tend to be sharply opposed to the idea of civil unions for same-sex couples, and that they also want to seem to be sharply opposed to such unions. If they are speaking with people who are also sharply opposed to these things, they are likely to shift in the direction of even sharper opposition as a result of learning what others think.

The final explanation is the most subtle, and probably the most important. The starting point here is that on many issues, most of us are really not sure what we think. Our lack of certainty inclines us toward the middle. Outside of enclaves, moderation is the usual path. Now imagine that people find themselves in enclaves in which they exclusively hear from others who think as they do. As a result, their confidence typically grows, and they become more extreme in their beliefs. Corroboration, in short, reduces tentativeness, and an increase in confidence produces extremism. Enclave extremism is particularly likely to occur on the Internet because people can so easily find niches of like-minded types — and discover that their own tentative view is shared by others.

It would be foolish to say, from the mere fact of extreme movements, that people have moved in the wrong direction. After all, the more extreme tendency might be better rather than worse. Increased extremism, fed by discussions among like-minded people, has helped fuel many movements of great value — including, for example, the civil-rights movement, the antislavery movement, the anti-genocide movement, the attack on communism in Eastern Europe, and the movement for gender equality. A special advantage of Internet enclaves is that they promote the development of positions that would otherwise be invisible, silenced, or squelched in general debate. Even if enclave extremism is at work — perhaps because enclave extremism is at work — discussions among like-minded people can provide a wide range of social benefits, not least because they greatly enrich the social “argument pool.” The Internet can be extremely valuable here.

But there is also a serious danger, which is that people will move to positions that lack merit but are predictable consequences of the particular circumstances of their self-sorting. And it is impossible to say whether those who sort themselves into enclaves of like-minded people will move in a direction that is desirable for society at large, or even for the members of each enclave. It is easy to think of examples to the contrary — the rise of Nazism, terrorism, and cults of various sorts. There is a general risk that those who flock together, on the Internet or elsewhere, will end up both confident and wrong, simply because they have not been sufficiently exposed to counterarguments. They may even think of their fellow citizens as opponents or adversaries in some kind of “war.”

The Internet makes it easy for people to create separate communities and niches, and in a free society, much can be said on behalf of both. They can make life a lot more fun; they can reduce loneliness and spur creativity. They can even promote democratic self-government, because enclaves are indispensable for incubating new ideas and perspectives that can strengthen public debate. But it is important to understand that countless editions of the Daily Me can also produce serious problems of mutual suspicion, unjustified rage, and social fragmentation — and that these problems will result from the reliable logic of social interactions.

Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of law and political science at the University of Chicago, is author of Republic 2.0, published in October by Princeton University Press.

Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 54, Issue 16, Page B9

from Dawson Prater at Locust Music:

Cast King passed away at his Old Sand Mountain home in Alabama On December 13th. He will be missed.

Cast taught himself to play guitar when he was a 10-year-old boy on Sand Mountain. In 1955 King recorded fewer than a dozen songs with his Honky-Tonk band, The Country Drifters, at the legendary Sun studios in Memphis. Five decades later, he recorded his debut for locust music with local producer & musician Matt Downer at the age of 79.

To many of you, this single album release – Saw Mill Man – became a household favorite, a taste of something raw & unadulterated from a musician few had heard of but whose rough and ready confidence & knack for song garnered praise in Rolling Stone, No Depression, Arthur, Mojo, Harp, Spin, Playboy, The Wall Street Journal and numerous other publications. Filmmakers started emerging out of the woodwork from all over wanting to tell Cast’s story. No documentary was ever made but Cast’s music graces the closing credits of Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park which is expected for theatrical release in the U.S. in 2008. Promoters far and wide tried their best to bring Cast to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and a number of European Cities throughout 2005 & 2006 but, having never flown in an airplane, he didn’t see reason to begin now.

As many of you know, Cast was working on new material for a second record. Cast had talked often about wanting to make a gospel record, not the kind you’d see on television, he’d say, but the kind that really gets to a man’s soul. “Saved” is one of those songs. Please download the song & enjoy it. If you can, consider making a donation below. 100% of the proceeds will go to Cast’s family to help cover medical and funeral expenses. Thanks to all who wish to show their support.

From Cast King producer Matt Downer…

“On December 11th, we learned that 81 year old country singer Cast King is terminally ill with cancer and won’t likely make it to the new year. Earlier this Fall, Cast had some back trouble which he thought was from chopping wood out back behind his Alabama home. It was the day of he and his wife Helen’s 59th anniversary that doctors found cancer in his body from head to toe. After some time in the hospital, Cast was brought home this week where he is expected to live out his final days. To many of you, his single album release – Saw Mill Man – became a household favorite, a taste of something raw & unadulterated from a then 79 year old musician no one had heard of but whose rough-and-ready confidence awakened a taste for the real & immediately captivated the attention of fans worldwide. As many of you know, Cast was working on new material for a second record. Cast had talked often about wanting to make a gospel record, not the kind you’d see on television, he’d say, but the kind that really gets to a man’s soul. “Saved” is one of those songs. Please download it and enjoy the song. If you can. please consider making a donation below. 100% of the proceeds will go to Cast’s family. His wife Helen is deep in mounting debt due to hospital bills and impending expenses for his burial. If you would like to include a message for Cast, we will be passing along daily emails to his family to be read to him. Thanks to all who wish to show their support.” More…

‘Rocket 88’: generally regarded as the first rock’n’roll single.

All from http://www.missrockaway.org/

The Miss Rockaway Armada is both a collection of individuals and an idea. At its most basic, the idea is this: we’re going to float down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans on rafts that we built ourselves. The crew can be called many things: artists, musicians, builders, travelers, organizers, dreamers. Ask one of the people who help build and move these crafts for the purpose, though, and you’ll get many answers. But there are some things that we all agree on. We want to create: to invent a new sustainable way to travel, to demonstrate different ways of living and moving that are friendlier to the environment and to each other, to indulge in that essential urge to make something out of nothing. We want to meet people: to learn from new folks along the way, to teach what we know, to share our art, our music and our performance, and to make new friends. Finally, for adventure: to reclaim and reinvent the old American urge to strike out and discover the vast, mysterious land we inhabit and see it for ourselves.

We are floating down the Mississippi River on a raft we built from trash.
The catch is that we don’t know much about boats or rivers, and we don’t have any money. We know we are blowing crazy hot air, but if the idea makes your eyes glow like coals then you understand what we’re doing. For the last year we’ve been meeting, making phone calls, holding benefits, drawing blueprints and building like crazy. We collected scrap wood from all over the city and hammered it together piece by piece. We had benefit parties and socked away brown rice and dented cans. We organized mostly out of New York and New Orleans because that’s where we live, but we have folks from the West coast as well as the Midwest.

Here’s the plan: Last year we met in Minneapolis in late July with sections of our raft in tow. We pieced together our pontoons and filled them with salvaged blocks of foam. We made it beautiful and tied on anything that would float, adding it to our junk armada, our anarchist county fair, our fools ark. Our precious cargo is everything we hold dear: pieces and parts of the culture we are already creating. Our zines and puppets, sewing projects and poster campaigns, mutant bicycles and punk rock marching bands. Plus our thoughts and dreams and irrepressible energy.

In the winter of 2007 a nice bar called Ducky’s Lagoon in Illinois took Miss Rockaway in and dry docked our giant raft. We love them for that. Recently, we plopped Miss Rockaway back in the water with a crane and we’re getting back on the river soon with a bigger and better show, more rafts & boats, more workshops and a good helping of face painting or the kids.

Together we’re floating down the Mississippi river, as far as we can, anchoring here and there to perform, give workshops, and create the big huge stinking spectacle we wished would have stopped in our hometowns. And at each place we’re inviting anyone to contribute performances or workshops of their own.

Our flotilla is built green with precycled materials, rainwater collection, wind and solar power, biodiesel, and dumpstered dinners. If we make it right, everything will run on sunshine and french fry grease. However, we are NOT hippies.

We are a small group of people with extensive experience making big insane projects. In the past we have taken 20-person bands to Mexico, pulled off town square-sized guerrilla theater in Berlin, and fed hundreds of people with garbage and love. We know this idea is ridiculous and impossible. That’s why we’re obsessed with it.

December 10, 2007 New York Times

The Media Equation

Muckraking Pays, Just Not in Profit

By DAVID CARR

Last Friday, the city of Chicago agreed to pay out $20 million to settle lawsuits filed by four former death-row inmates who said they had been tortured by police officers and subsequently wrongly convicted. The four men were among dozens of black men who said they were tortured, beaten with phone books and suffocated with plastic typewriter covers while in police custody in the 1970s and 1980s, according to special prosecutors.

The stories of three of those four men, who were pardoned by former Gov. George Ryan in 2003, were first told by John Conroy, a veteran reporter for The Chicago Reader, an alternative weekly. On Friday, Mr. Conroy received a note from Jo Ann Patterson, whose son had been nearly suffocated in police custody in the process of obtaining a confession that proved to be false.

“My son, Aaron Patterson, tortured by the Chicago Police Department, would not be alive today, I believe, without your articles about police torture in the City of Chicago. You documented and wrote the realization of police torture, of which we will never forget. You help save my son’s life for which I thank you.”

Mr. Conroy was busy dealing with a flurry of e-mail messages that day because on Thursday, he had been laid off. The Chicago Reader, which had published his work for over 20 years, decided it could no longer afford to support his reporting. Citing declining revenue and a need to trim costs, Alison True, the editor of the paper, laid off four of its most experienced reporters, including Mr. Conroy. The Washington City Paper, another newsweekly owned by the same company, announced five newsroom layoffs as well.

In a week of media retrenchment — rumors of further cutbacks in network news, continuing layoffs at regional dailies and a “temporary” pay cut at an Illinois daily that became permanent — nine newsroom layoffs don’t seem significant. But of course, that all depends on whose ox is being gored, and in this instance, I felt a bit of the splatter.

At the end of the 1990s, I was editor of The Washington City Paper, a weekly with a history of excellence built by Jack Shafer (now the press critic for Slate), and owned by a group of college friends turned businessmen who also owned The Chicago Reader. In the time I worked for them, I was impressed by their constancy and their willingness to support good work in the belief that if you produced quality journalism, the business would look after itself.

In the case of The Reader, it seems like that turned out not to be true. The owners in Chicago sold out last summer to an unfortunately named outfit, Creative Loafing from Atlanta, which has mandated cuts across the organization. It is as if Creative Loafing executives bought a shiny new doll and then once they got their hands on it, felt compelled to tear its head off.

Ben Eason, chief executive of Creative Loafing, said, “We are not trying to make any other statement here other than it is a competitive world out there and we are doing what we can to make sure we are putting out an excellent paper in the communities we serve.”

Investigative reporting can expose corruption, create accountability and occasionally save lives, but it will never be a business unto itself. Reporters frequently spend months on various lines of inquiry, some of which do not pan out, and even when one does, it is not the kind of coverage that draws advertisers.

Serious reporting used to be baked into the business, but under pressure from the public markets or their private equity owners, newsrooms have been cutting foreign bureaus, Washington reporters and investigative capacity. Under this model, the newsroom is no longer the core purpose of media, it’s just overhead.

At the same time, the consumer is feeling more empowered, with Google, Digg and all manner of RSS feeds pushing current data to their desktops. But Google and Digg never made a phone call, never asked hard questions of public officials, never got an innocent man out of jail.

The smartest Web robot in the world is going to come back dumb if there is nothing out there to crawl across. Thousands of bloggers could type for a millennium and not come up with the kind of deeply reported story that freed innocent men — an effort that takes years of inquiry, deep sources and a touch for making unholy secrets knowable.

There have been attempts to fill in the gaps in investigative journalism, most notably in ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom led by Paul Steiger, the former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. Another nonprofit, Mother Jones, which has a history of both aggressive reporting and left-leaning politics, recently opened a seven-person Washington bureau dedicated to investigative journalism to fill what its editors see as a vacuum in political and government reporting.

But enterprises like these will never be a substitute for a vital newspaper industry, which has historically used a distributed model of reporting to hold government, business and the broader culture to account.

There is a chance that historians will examine this period in American history and wonder if journalism left the field. With a lack of real-time annotation, wholesale business swindles and rogue actions by sitting governments will go uncovered.

In part, it is the triumph of the spinners, top to bottom. Since the media reached the height of its powers in the 1970s, there has been a pervasive effort to gain custody of public information in both the public and private sector. A working reporter cannot walk into a Gap store in a mall, let alone a police station, and ask a question without being swarmed by bureaucracy.

If the watchdog role is threatened by immediate financial pressures, I’m beginning to think that in the long run it can still flourish. Last week, this paper reported that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes documenting the harsh interrogation of detainees that some believe constitutes torture.

The New York Times and other New York newspapers reported that a New York detective might have perjured himself when he said he had not interrogated a murder suspect, a suspect who was recording him all the while on an MP3 player in his pocket. And readers also learned that any bailout of the consumers caught in the subprime mess will be largely dictated by the industry that created it.

And lest you think that I’m just waving around the pompoms to keep my team in the game, keep in mind that later this week, Rupert Murdoch, the most successful of the modern media titans, is taking over The Wall Street Journal. He has made it clear that he will invest in the business newspaper to turn it into a source of general news. If the future of news were really so grim, would Mr. Murdoch be interested?

If Mr. Murdoch’s opinion of news (or that of The Times) isn’t to your liking, consider the view of Ms. Patterson, whose son was freed due in part to Mr. Conroy’s reporting.

“Without John Conroy’s stories, the public would have never believed what happened to my son,” she said in a phone call. “It is so important to have a reporter who knew the whole story, who did the reporting, and told people, over and over, what was really going on.”