What, are you talking about Daniel Hopsicker's investigative journalism? (Mad Cow Morning News?) He has been researching the links between the government, the CIA and the mob for years and his style is quite informative. A lot of it is theory but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to put two and two together. I have a couple of his books and they are far from "cruddy", but they are "frightening" if you really don't understand the machinations of power as it is practised here in the US.
I have been a fan of investigative journalism since Iran Contra.

I read him for entertainment because I feel most of the Washington apples are bad. When you read who is hanging out with who and what their business practices are, a much nicer picture emerges. Oh, and you can't put it into a sound byte. And rarely do the larger media pick it up until, say........two years later.

All it is........is figuring it out for yourself (ahead of the pack). Then you can see how the televison news and the media is like a commercial circus (similiar to Washington) in that they function for the money and the power, and they say and do whatever it takes to keep their sponsors happy.
We all are victims of this market place legislation. People need a slap up the side of the head because they have bought into the politics of the marketplace and can't see anything else around them.

I rarely watch TV or the news unless some major event is unfolding. I, however, DO read voraciously from several different sources to get my own interpretation of what's really going on behind all that marketing and congressional BS that's thrown at us like slop on a daily basis.

Congressmen (to some degree) are like media whores or the advertising campaigns that support them.