Fenster writes:

I have written previously on the press’s predilection to not cover things, and how it can be more effective to ignore than to risk the fabrication of fake news.  That practice can be spotted, with practice, if you have an eye out for what Holmes called the dog that didn’t bark–the absence of something being the clue to something else.

The habit of ignoring is especially prevalent at my hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe (see here and here).

Back in 2018 the Globe did a bang-up job ignoring the Curious Case of the Congressional IT Specialist–Imran Awan.  A case with a very large non-barking dog.

There’s the case of Imran Awan, the congressional tech staffer who may or may not be implicated in larger political issues.  I won’t go into those issues here except to say that the story has been alive and kicking for a long time now, well over a year.  The theories about Awan being linked to bad political derring-do are not proven.  But any review of the facts as reported outside the mainstream strongly suggest that this is if nothing else a story.  There is something to report on that is not just vapors.

I watched the Boston Globe archives for the last year and a half looking for any mention of his name.  Zero.  He was apparently simply not newsworthy.  If you read the Globe for all your news you would not have known who he is.

Awan is still in the fringes of mainstream discourse, with his name appearing from time to time, mostly to suggest tales of shenanigans have been “debunked”or that any case that may have been opened against him for his actions has been closed.

But maybe not so fast.  The Daily Wire reports that the reason the government will not turn over information on Awan is not because of “technical difficulties”, as it originally asserted, but because “there is a secret ongoing case related to the matter.”

Well that’s interesting, right?  Maybe the case is not closed.  Maybe as the article suggests the reason for the secrecy is that there may be actual, you know, national security issues at stake.  Like, I mean, like what the original concerns were before the stories were “debunked.”

Now that might be something that a real newspaper-newspaper (e.g., truth to power; custodians of virtue, indefatigable shoe leather sleuths, Woodstein/Watergate blah blah blah) might be interested in, no?

But no.  That is: no interest.  I checked the Globe archives again. Still nothing new on Awan.  I will keep checking and let you know when hell freezes over.