It’s 2008. The U.S. newspapers that haven’t gone broke are clinging to the rim of the toilet bowl. One of them, the struggling Philadelphia Daily News, is more interested in tabloid fluff than in hard-hitting investigations. Despite this, two honest, old-school journalists risk their careers and even their lives to uncover crime and corruption in the narcotics unit of the Philadelphia police force. The story is unlikely but true—and a good illustration of why local news reporting—which has been slashed from newspaper after newspaper nationwide—is important. Without journalists like Ruderman and Laker, some pretty big trees fall in the forest—and no one’s around to hear them. Reviewed on March 25, 2021