In 1948, the body of an American journalist tasked with covering the Greek civil war was found. George Polk had been murdered, and a disaster of an investigation and show trial followed. Pitting the ethics of honest journalism against the endemic corruption of the Greek government, and the willing-to-countenance-corruption of the Americans propping up the regime, it's no surprise that ethics lost. And they did so partly because the bulk of the American journalists, some of whom were in positions high enough to make a fuss, decided (with some honourable exceptions) to look away, to be deliberately sub-standard in the performance of their vocation. Marton's coverage-in-retrospect, taking place 40 years after the events in question, seems well-researched and plausible. I'd never even heard of Polk before this, but despite a fatal naivety in his last few days, he comes across a lot better than the men who did their level best to obfuscate his death. Yes, the Yanks were in the beginning of their frothing-at-the-mouth over communism, but their willingness to throw up truth and justice for their own ends make that frothing appear a lot less about idealism and loyalty than it does their desperate desire to hold onto power at any cost, and for its own sake.

One would like to think that journalists working now would be less slavish in their desire to please, but one only has to look at what passes for much of contemporary political journalism to see that such a wish is woefully optimistic.