As American news media is increasingly polarized by the political views of editorial staff and the agendas of select journalists, much of what the public once considered balanced news has gone extinct. For a left-leaning point of view, we can turn to CNN and The New York Times; for a lean to the right, we have The Wall Street Journal and Fox News. The shame of this simply is that journalism has become perverted by emotion and by ordained perspective.
In this environment, independent investigative voices have been muted in the establishmed media. Investigative journalism is now about further reinforcing the positions of a particular news outlet - and not about the matter itself.
The aim of this blog is to establish an independent investigative news voice - one journalist poking around matters of local, national, and global importance - and to unfold a byline syndicate among relevant news sources. The items and issues covered in this blog are considered matters of importance to one journalist, but the investigation will maintain an equality and universal voice.
The secondary goal of this blog is to document the progress of establishing the syndicate, examining the anatomy of a story from its construction through to its ultimate life or death at the hands of various editors around the country. In this regard, The Matter will stand as a written documentary within written documentaries - with experimentation in the pursuit of Journalism As Exploration at its very heart.
