James Day Interviews I.F. Stone

To back up the point that Stone was able to tell the truth because he was his own boss:

Note how uncynical I.F. Stone was about the people he notes are driven by the institutions they work in and even run, something I doubt anyone would dare to say today.  Of course he was talking about the 1970s press, which has devolved into the standards of the worst of 1920s newspapers, I think he'd say things a bit differently about today's corporate media.   What he had to say about the duties of the press, under the First Amendment is certainly out of style these days.

I really miss Stone.

Update:  For anyone who never saw one of Stone's Weekly newsletters, all of them are available for download here from 1953-1971.

Since you're likely in any Google Search of Stone to run across the campaign of Ronald Radosh and others on the right to slander him as a Soviet agent, here's an especially revealing number from July 2, 1956 - quoted by Radosh for other purposes - in which he slams the Rosenberg defenders, especially the Communists, for their hypocrisy and double standards about Soviet standards of justice.  From everything for calling out the Rosenberg side for refusing to acknowledge the evidence against them, the hypocrisies of them ignoring the victims of Stalin's murder campaigns, Bertrand Russell and Paul Satre for their absurd comments....  I can't imagine any contemporary blogger being so brutally honest without getting major blog assaults launched against him from both the "left" and the right.   It was the left who was able to take full strength Stone who led to the 1960s left, today's couldn't take that level of honesty, which is probably another reason it fails so regularly.

Read on page 3, also, his account of Arthur Miller's testimony before the House Unamerican Activities Committee.   His noting the clownishness of the Committee Council, though Ahern's level of idiocy would probably get him called an intellectual in today's TV-infotainment saturated world.