Twenty-five years after the Mirage. Wade past the Bob Greene digression up high to the meat of this piece -- a look back at the Chicago Sun-Times' landmark investigative project, the Mirage Tavern. The premise: What if a newspaper opened a bar? Who would come calling? In this case, a parade of petty scammers on a variety of public and private payrolls, each with their hand out for a shakedown. It was a singular look at corruption at the small-business level, a 25-day series people actually read and chuckled over, and yet it was denied the Pulitzer Prize and marked a watershed moment, after which undercover journalism was seen as fundamentally dishonest
posted by nance on Oct 4, 2002 - 31 comments