Ken Silverstein

Undercover reporting was long an accepted practice in American journalism, but in recent years it has largely fallen out of favour. The decline can be traced in part to the transformation of journalism from a profession for cynical, underpaid gumshoe reporters into...a highbrow occupation for opinion-mongers, Sunday talk show yakkers and social climbers. As punditry has replaced muckraking as the profession's highest calling, undercover reporting has been abandoned as too embarrassing and undignified. — Ken Silverstein, 2008 Ken Silverstein is an American editor covering the Washington bureau for Harper's Magazine . In addition to contributing to the print edition of Harper's Magazine, Silverstein publishes a weblog entitled "Washington Babylon" on the magazine's website. In 1993, Silverstein started CounterPunch , a political newsletter. Silverstein left the publication in 1996.¹ Silverstein worked for the Los Angeles Times as an investigative reporter, for The Associated Press in Brazil, and has written for Mother Jones, Washington Monthly, The Nation, Slate, and Salon. Silverstein is a self-described "gadfly" in the newspaper business, and an opponent of what he considers "false 'balance'" in the news media. He drew attention in 2007 for a report in which he went undercover as an investment group with business interests in Turkmenistan, raising questions about journalistic ethics. Silverstein said that he could not have exposed the willingness of the companies to work with a Stalinist dictatorship using conventional journalism methods. Silverstein is noted for his attention to lobbyists and tracking how money influences power and policy in Washington.² He resides in Washington, D.C. .³