They Followed the Money

By Walter Isaacson, Managing Editor

When the first installment of Don Barlett and Jim Steele's examination of corporate welfare appeared in November 1998, TIME was proud to present investigative journalism at its finest--reporting that is as much explanation as it is sensation and that exposes what those in power probably would prefer ordinary folks not see. The series demonstrated why the Washington Journalism Review called Barlett and Steele "almost certainly the best team in the history of investigative reporting." Their four-part "Corporate Welfare" series earned the pair eight major journalism prizes, including the 1999 National Magazine Award for Public Interest. And last week President Clinton even cited their best-selling 1992 book, America: What Went Wrong? in his State of the Union Address.

But we aren't letting them rest on their awards.

This week they begin a new series, "Big Money & Politics," which will probe the consequences of all the campaign cash Washington rakes in--in this particular case, from the direction of banana magnate Carl Lindner. Barlett and Steele, who spent 27 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer before coming to TIME in 1997, are no strangers to covering campaign-finance abuses, but this investigation was especially challenging because, says Steele, "politicians and lobbyists are going to greater and greater lengths to disguise what they do."

"Big Money & Politics" has taken 10 months (and counting) of investigation, more than 100 interviews and digging through more than 25,000 pages of documents, many never before released. Other reporters have explored pieces of Lindner's influence in Washington, but no one has zeroed in on his campaign donations and explored the consequences in this kind of detail.

What also makes this week's report special is that Barlett and Steele don't dwell solely on politicians and their patrons. Many of us have become numb to the news of campaign-finance abuses, in part because they are usually seen as a Washington issue: of course money influences politics, but that's the government's problem, not mine. What Barlett and Steele set out to show is who gets hurt in the process, and that means you and your neighbors.

Some who read our series may accuse us of picking on certain government officials or corporations, but such criticism misses the point. Given our current system of financing elections, politicians have no choice but to spend as much time raising money as governing, and businesses must play the game if they want a seat at the policymaking table.

So, as the campaign season progresses, as candidates fight over the differences between "soft" and "hard" money, in between chatting at donor coffees and $1,000-a-plate dinners, we hope our series will show that the campaign-finance system is a problem not just for Washington but for all of us.

Walter Isaacson, Managing Editor