I. F. Stone

The holidays are coming. If your gift list includes a left-wing grandparent, or someone interested in investigative reporting, I recommend a new biography of one of the heroes of my youth:

All Governments Lie!
The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone
by Myra MacPherson (2006 Scribners)

In the late 1960's "The Old Guy" and I subscribed to I.F. Stone's Weekly. For $5 a year, we got a four page newsletter in the mail every week or two containing news and opinion available nowhere else. Stone, a reporter since the 1920's, was a radical/liberal icon. The powers-that-be hated him (his FBI file ran to 5000+ pages), but they could rarely dispute the stories he reported.
Stone is mainly remembered by my generation for his passionate reporting on McCarthy in the 50's, and on the the Civil Rights movement and Viet Nam war in the 60's, but his analyses of government secrecy, the erosion of civil liberties in war time, and the role of the media are all too relevant today.