The Huffington Post Investigative Fund, Arianna Huffington's failed attempt at nonprofit journalism, was taken over by the Center for Public Integrity. Now the Center for Public Integrity has been taken over by a right-wing hack. Ha-ha!
The Huffington Post Investigative Fund couldn't make it on its own, so it merged with the older and more established Center for Public Integrity last month, which was basically an acknowledgment that Huffington's grand plans and ambitions to "save" journalism amounted to little more than a way to get free copy for her for-profit web site.
And now the Center for Public Integrity, having swallowed her dream, has named former Washington Times editor John Solomon as its executive editor. Solomon, who's been a dogged investigative reporter for the Associated Press and the Washington Post, has long been a bete noire for the left: Media Matters has called him a "frequent purveyor of conservative misinformation" with a "history of distortion"; ThinkProgress calls him a "shoddy" reporter, and Talking Points Memo said his pursuit of Harry Reid for a variety of purported ethical lapses in a series AP stories relied on "key distortions and omissions."
The first time I met Al Jazeera’s Gaza team lead, Tamer Almisshal, was in July last...
