Word: watchdog
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...Madrid has had some success in dealing with Mexico's endemic corruption. He has created watchdog offices for public spending and jailed Jorge Diaz Serrano, former president of the state-owned PEMEX oil giant, on charges of defrauding the company of $34 million. He has also allowed the government to investigate the suspicious wealth of former Mexico City Police Chief Arturo Durazo Moreno, and confiscated some of his ostentatious properties...
...stake. Classic Walt Disney comedy, right? Guess again. In the view of the National Coalition on Television Violence, it is an example of the "quite troubling" level of violence on cable's year-old Disney Channel. After monitoring the channel for two weeks, the watchdog organization found an average of nine violent acts an hour on real-life programming and 18 an hour on cartoons, nearly as high as on the three networks. Among the offenses: space battles in the Disney film The Black Hole, swordplay in an adaptation of Stevenson's Kidnapped, fistfights...
French law gives the National Assembly the right to ask questions about the operations of the intelligence services, but the government's usual, and accepted, answer is a blank "secret de la défense. The West German Bundestag does have a watchdog committee for that nation's equivalent of the CIA. But the committee's eight members are sworn to deepest secrecy The Bundestag has declared members of the antinuclear Green Party ineligible to serve on the committee because they would not take the pledge...
...wearying as its often sloppy, overwritten coverage can be, the Post remains the nation's second most influential paper. It reaches beyond White House handouts and glamorous legislative debates to probe scandals, follies and policy debates in obscure federal agencies. In this capacity it serves as an invaluable watchdog. Columnists Mary McGrory, Richard Cohen and George Will have mastered the art of arousing emotion without overlooking ideas. The paper's metropolitan staff brings much the same assiduity to the diverse politics of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The Post also has a sincere commitment to helping...
Even so tethered a watchdog was too fierce for the New York Times, a worthy paper much given to solemn defenses of its own probity. To submit to inside-the-craft judgments, the Times said, "would encourage an atmosphere of regulation. We will not furnish information or explanations to the council." That powerful opposition effectively doomed the council from the start. Richard Salant, then president of CBS News, criticized the Times for being "so goddam hard-nosed. I take the position that everyone has the right to look over my shoulder except the Government." But, Salant added, many...