JOSHUA FRANK: Karl Rove Indicted? -- Jason Leopold and Truthout

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By Joshua Frank -- World News Trust

Jason Leopold should be used to it. He’s been the target of media assaults for years now, really ever since he began breaking stories about Enron’s fiascos and the California energy crisis as a writer for Dow Jones Newswire. If you don’t know who I am talking about, well then you’ve probably been hiding under a rock these past few days.

Leopold wrote a story last weekend for Truthout.org stating that Karl Rove was served an indictment Friday, May 12. And since his uncorroborated revelation (which he said was backed by five inside sources, and now more), he’s taken a fair share of beatings in the press.

Jason, who I consider a friend, has had a self-confessed “checkered” past -- one his enemies and skeptics aren’t afraid to drag through the mud to discredit his reports. He hasn’t only had tough bouts with his journalism career, but with his life in general. In fact, he recently wrote a fantastic memoir about it called News Junkie, which goes into brutal detail about his intoxicated past and the harrowing defeats that followed. He lied his way into a job with the LA Times, ripped off a major New York record company for tens of thousands of dollars to support a coke habit, and was caught (but never did time, even though the Washington Post wrote as much). His critics call him a fake, and his readers say he’s the real deal. Ultimately, time will tell who's right and who's wrong.

Had Jason broke his latest story for the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, it’s unlikely he’d be subject to the same ridicule. But when an indy writer gets a major scoop before anybody in the mainstream major media does, animosity is sure to follow. And that’s why the outcome of this saga will either legitimize independent media, or devastate it.

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