This is what Channel 5's investigative team has been reduced to: Janet Wu wandering around Boston like some crazed pediatrician with a throat-culture Q-tip, rubbing random objects in random public places (such as a single crossing button at a single, unidentified crosswalk) and having a lab determine whether they have bacteria on them.

Guess what? They do! Alas, Janet can't tell us if these are KILLER GERMS because she apparently spent so much on the swab sticks that Channel 5 refused to pay for real testing. But you never know:

The samples were random, and Krueger said the test does not differentiate between good bacteria and bad bacteria.

"If the surface has got a high total bacteria count -- it increases the likelihood that it has pathogenic bacteria, as well," Krueger said.

Team 5 Investigates: Where the germs are

This just in! Two of the people who were involved in that December car accident with Cambridge city councilor and would-be state senator Anthony Galluccio did not contact Channel 5 reporter Janet Wu to tip her off about the accident. Repeat, they did not call Wu first.

I know, let the full implications of that sink in for a moment. Besides, as the Alewife, which breathlessly reports this fact, adds: Developing...

Seems the Alewife has decided how Wu got the story is more important than the fact that a prominent city official may face drunk-driving charges (Galluccio's hearing is April 28). Give writer Neil McCabe credit, of a sort, for calling Wu up (so she could then decline to say how she got the story).