David Corn: "Jack Anderson, the crusading investigative journalist who once was the most important independent journalist in the nation, died this past weekend. In 1987, during my first year in Washington for The Nation, I wrote a profile of Anderson that was not complimentary. By that point, he had lost much of his game and had become ensnared in several sleazy business dealings. My aim was to provide some constructive criticism--which came to me mostly from people working with him who had started to fret about him--that might nudge him back toward the path of his former glory days. Of course, it didn't work. The article merely pissed him off royally. Lesson learned (for me): constructive criticism is rarely seen as constructive by the subject of the criticism."

More about Jack, and independence, and investigation. Then on Bono and AIDS