Lara Logan, You Suck

[Jan Klimkowski]

Hey, assholes: you do not work for the people you're covering!

Precisely.

In 2001, Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric and Wall Street darling, was retiring.

That year, I was commissioned by the BBC Business Dept, in a deal part brokered - I now believe - by literary agents, to produce and direct a BBC and American co-production documentary profile of "Jack".

I made it clear to my BBC bosses that I would only accept the commission if I was allowed to research the subject thoroughly, and paint a true picture of whatever that process uncovered about Welch's career.

During the course of my research, including field trips to places like Schenectady, the company town of GE, and original interviews with people such as a former senior R&D manager at GE, who had followed proudly in the footsteps of a father who had overseen research leading to dozens of breakthrough patents for GE, it became clear to me that the MSM/Wall Street legend of Welch, and the reality of that career, were irreconcileable.

Polar opposites.

Welch had chased short-term profit which maximized bonuses for senior managers; wage arbitrage through outsourcing; ghetto and liar home loans by exploiting GE's AAA credit rating (earned through its once powerful and innovative manufacturing base); and maintained control of dissent through his highly disciplinarian "GE manager" schools.

This was a parable of C20th Wall Street capitalism, whose legacy is now playing out in our towns and villages.

I'd clearly forgotten CBS and MSM's rule that I was expected to work for the people I was covering.

I was taken off the project.

Ultimately, the film was never made.

There is only one justification for the Fourth Estate. And that is to speak Truth to Power.