Izzy Stone, Patron Saint of Bloggers. "...nineteen years ago this week ... I.F. (Izzy) Stone died"

[laststeamtrain]

Izzy Stone, Patron Saint of Bloggers
by Jeff Cohen

It was nineteen years ago this week that I.F. (Izzy) Stone died. The legendary blogger was 81.

Confused? You say he died years before web blogs were invented?

Well, yeah, but when I think of today’s blunt, fact-based online hell-raisers, my mind quickly flashes on Izzy Stone. You may think of Josh Marshall or Glenn Greenwald or Arianna Huffington. I think of Izzy.

Before there was an Internet, Izzy Stone was doing the work we associate with today’s best bloggers. Like them, he was obsessed with citing original documents and texts. But before search engines, Izzy had to consume ten newspapers per day — and physically visit government archives and press offices, and personally pore over thousands of words in the Congressional Record. That’s how he repeatedly scooped the gullible, faux-objective MSM of his day in exposing government deceit, like that propelling the Vietnam War.

Izzy was the ultimate un-embedded reporter. His journalism was motivated by a simple maxim that resonates loudly in our era of Cheneys and Rumsfelds and WMD hoaxes: “All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.”

Month after month from 1953 to 1969 I.F. Stone’s Weekly (biweekly through 1971) exposed deceptions as fast as governments could spin them. His timely and timeless dispatches are gathered in an exceptional paperback, The Best of I.F. Stone.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/16/9646/

[justinaforjustice]

1. I.F. Stone's Weekly -- Superb Journalism

You are absolutely correct. Izzy Stone's I.F. Stone's Weekly was the progenitor of today's best investigative blogging. He would love EmptyWheel! Stone was amazing. He was almost blind yet managed to read all the fine print in all the usually well hidden government documents.

[Sal Minella]

2. I was a subscriber for many years and he was the one newspaperman I trusted.

He used publically-available sources in his research and had a genius for assembling the truth out of disparate bits of information.

[starroute]

3. And Stone walked in the footsteps of George Seldes

They're both among my heroes. I grew up reading Stone -- but also hearing my mother's stories of Seldes' reporting in the 30's and 40's, and how he told the truth about the Spanish Civil War when the New York Times wouldn't because of their pro-fascist advertisers.

Maybe add in a little of Upton Sinclair's pioneer muckraking as well. And Ida Tarbell, who first took on Standard Oil.

We have so many patron saints -- and most of us have never heard of half of them. We could use to remember them better.