What journalists used to do

Back when we actually had news:

Previously, reporting on "what the government does, not just what it says" was the basic function of political journalism. But these days, journalists who actually do that are so rare -- they stand out so conspicuously -- that they win Pulitzer Prizes for it.

Glenn Greenwald is writing about Charlie Savage who won a Pulitzer Prize today:

The Pulitzer Prize Committee today recognized the work of one of America's few truly excellent political journalists:

Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe won for national reporting for his revelations that President Bush often used "signing statements" to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws.

Even for months after The New York Times first revealed -- back in December 2005 -- that the Bush administration had been secretly eavesdropping on Americans in violation of FISA for the prior four years, there were virtually no journalists writing about the Bush administration's theories of lawlessness which gave rise to that specific lawbreaking. And there were virtually no journalists who recognized or described just how profoundly radical that behavior was.

But as I've noted many times, Savage was one of the very few journalists in the country who understood, investigated and reported on the radical theories of executive power embraced by this President. And once he began reporting on those abuses, he was relentless in his efforts to draw public attention to the administration's conduct.

Journalists used to report on those in government not be friends with them. Will we ever get real oversight again?