The noble art of muckraking

USA: WASHINGTON BABYLON by Alexander Cockburn & Ken Silverstein, Verso pounds 9.95

Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein stride through Washington as populist crusaders determined to slay the Evils eating America's integrity. Their sword: muckraking journalism. Their targets: corporations, liberals, Republicans, lobbyists, foundations, conservatives, star reporters, Democrats - just about anybody related to Washington, or anyone who has ever visited the town, or anyone related to anyone who has ever visited. Disappointingly, they don't rake muck, they skim it.

To call this a rehash of old charges would be to insult hash. The philandering of Newt Gingrich, the willingness of Bill Clinton to take contributions from chicken-pluckers, the influence of Big Oil: it's all here, badly rewritten from the hard work of hundreds of serious reporters who took the trouble to gather the material in the first place. Just about every allegation against the Washington Establishment for the last two decades receives exposure again, but Cockburn and Silverstein have added nothing to the stew. All they did was employ such tricks of the propagandist as innuendo, clever juxtaposition and assassination by association to defame the new Babylonians. As a result, Washington Babylon bears as much resemblance to journalism as page three of The Sun does to the art of the human figure.

This screed does offer small bits of tabloid-level entertainment. Take the dozens of unflattering photos. One pair catches Henry Kissinger picking his nose during a conference and chewing on the result. Another makes wife Hillary Clinton and self-proclaimed mistress Gennifer Flowers look like sisters.

The text, however, is devoid of even scatological humour. The authors open with attacks on every star in the media firmament, from Katherine Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post, to Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio host who entertains America at lunchtime with diatribes about "feminazis" and welfare frauds. Given the paucity of media criticism in America, this segment on the press could have been useful. But the authors offer little insight about institutions or organisational structures. They go straight for the individuals: Sam Donaldson, an aggressive television reporter, is exposed for receiving government subsidies for his sheep ranch in New Mexico (the way all sheep ranchers do). Bob Woodward, half of the team that uncovered Watergate, comes under criticism for his efforts "to destroy a federal subsidy helping disabled children".

Cockburn and Silverstein then move on through PR experts and commentators to Congress. Some of their targets are just dangerously ignorant, like Frank Cremeans from Ohio, who is part of the rampaging freshman class of Republicans. His analysis of history: "The Greeks and Romans were homosexuals. Their civilisation did not stand. Did they come in contact with a social disease like Aids? I don't know, but I wonder." That may mark him as an idiot, but does it confirm him as part of the "corrupt political establishment"?

The easy targets, the lobbyists, come next. Here, the authors use the sins of the client to judge the ethics of the professional. A lobbyist for the president of Gabon is besmirched because of the president's penchant for hiring prostitutes in Paris without informing them that he "was widely rumoured to be HIV-positive". In the Cockburn/Silverstein church, six degrees of separation is close enough to share the blame.

Then comes the Babylonian Pentagon. "EXPOSED: Defense Department Deals with Merchants of Death." Where else can one buy arms? And the Green movement. "TIMBER!! Wilderness Society President Sells Lumber from his Montana Ranch." His 800-acre spread was no virgin forest.

And, finally, the presidency. After raking through Bill Clinton's indiscretions again and turning up nothing new, Cockburn and Silverstein exhibit their courage and skill by focusing their vitriol on a defenceless cabinet member, Ron Brown, defenceless because he is dead. In perhaps the most muck-eating moment of Washington Babylon, the authors suggest that Brown earned his death earlier this year while leading a delegation of American businessmen to Bosnia to invest in its reconstruction. Referring to an earlier trade mission, during which the Saudis agreed to buy American aircraft, they write: "He sold Boeing to Saudi Arabia; a Boeing took him down." As if Boeing caused the pilot to fly into a mountain-top near Sarajevo, as if Ron Brown had it coming.

The turn-of-the-century muckrakers who exposed excesses in the American corporate system earned their results the old-fashioned way. They took to the field and investigated. They made workplaces safer, reformed government, improved housing conditions. Cockburn and Silverstein can call themselves journalists. In America self-appointment to the profession is acceptable. But they will never deserve the description "muckrakers" as long as they sit comfortably among the elite they so disdain.

Albert Scardino won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism at the 'Georgia Gazette' in 1984.