Reply #19: Thank you everyone for all the recommendations.

[truedelphi]

This experience leaves me shattered. My innocence disappeared over those months of trying to get someone, anyone to take the lead on the MTBE story.

When people on DU say things like, "We need to write to the editor at such and such MegaMedia and let them know that:
Bush should be impeached,
or that oil prices wouldn't be so high if not for rampant speculating,
or that most Americans want the war in Iraq ended -

A tiny voice in me cries out: But those at Mega Media already know those things! What the media is about is making sure we have as little printed matter as possible to prove our case.

And the process is corrupting to young journalists too: they have tens of thousands of dollars to pay off on their student loans. THey can work for the local Chicago or Kansas City news paper, and start out making
$ 35 to $ 40 K, running themselves into the ground. Or they can work for Monsanto, or Merck, and make $ 55 K to start - all they need to do is to repeat the things Monsanto or Merck tells them. Since journalists are often untrained in science, the junk science that comes with the territory is readily acceptable to them.

This is why the internet is the only place the more astute among us hang out.