What Happened to the Press?

Liberal or Conservative, everyone should have the willies about this...
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From JONATHAN WEISMAN, Economics Writer, Washington Post:

In the wake of Seymour Hersh's open statements about the way the White House treats the press, I feel compelled to relate a personal story that illustrates how both the White House and the press have allowed manipulation of the printed word in Washington to get out of hand. This is a bit of a confession as well as an appeal to the White House and my fellow reporters to rethink the way journalism is practiced these days.

Recently, I was working on a profile of the now-departed chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, R. Glenn Hubbard. I dutifully went through the White House press office to talk to an administration economist about Hubbard's tenure, and a press office aide helpfully got me in touch with just the person I wanted. The catch was this: The interview would be off the record. Any quotes I wanted to put into the newspaper would have to be e-mailed to the press office. If approved, the quotation could be attributed to a White House official. (This has become fairly standard practice.)

Since the profile focused on Hubbard's efforts to translate relatively
arcane macroeconomic theory into public policy, the quote I wanted
referenced the president's effort to end the double taxation of dividends: "This is probably the most academic proposal ever to come out of an administration." The press office said it was fine, but the official wanted a little change. Instead, the quote was to read, "This is probably the purest, most far reaching economic proposal ever to come out of an administration." I protested that the point of the quote was the word "academic," so the quote was again amended to state, "This is probably the purest, most academic, most far reaching economic proposal ever to come out of an administration."

What appeared in the Washington Post was, "This is probably the purest, most academic ... economic proposal ever to come out of an administration." What followed was an angry denunciation by the White House press official, telling me I had broken my word and violated journalistic ethics.

I had, of course, violated journalistic ethics, by placing into quotation marks a phrase that was never uttered by the source, ellipses or no ellipses. I had also played ball with the White House using rules that neither I nor any other reporter should be assenting to. I think it is time for all of us to reconsider the way we cover the White House. If administration officials want to speak off the record, they are off the record. If they are on background as an administration official, I suppose that's the best we can expect. But the notion that reporters are routinely submitting quotations for approval, and allowing those quotes to be manipulated to get that approval, strikes me as a step beyond business as usual.

http://www.poynter.org/forum/?id=letters#whitehouse
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From MATT ROUSH, CBS News:

Having worked as a reporter for 25 years, I've got to say I'm completely and utterly appalled at Jonathan Weisman's account of how the Bush Administration is vetting quotes and demanding changes in quotes on stories about public policy proposals. For one thing, when nobody says them, they're not quotes, period. End of story. To say they are quotes is a lie. End of story. And my sources do not get to tell me what they said. They say what they say, I write it down or record it, and I put it in my stories if I think it's relevant, with the blessing of my editors. If I do not quote them correctly, I do not get to continue working as a reporter. That's how it works, or rather how it's supposed to. To me this is just one more example of the the way the Washington press corps has rolled over and become lapdogs for the Bush Administration.

There are terrific stories to be told about this bunch, as good as or better than anything that ever came out of the Clinton years, but for a variety of reasons (fear, laziness, misguided patriotism) they are not being told. Sept. 11 changed some things, but it did not change the press's responsibility to act as guardians for the public interest and of the public's tax dollars at work.

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From JESSE FOX MAYSHARK:
As a reporter, I was equal parts fascinated and appalled by Jonathan Weisman's letter. I'm glad he had the guts to write it, and I can only hope it's the beginning of some kind of awakening of professional responsibility. Coupled with the White House corps' placid acquiescence in last week's so-called press conference, it raises some pretty serious questions. Like, why should any thinking person believe anything they read or hear about this administration? I was already tired of stories full of unattributed sources making vague statements; now it seems that those sources are even getting to write their own material. Why does the national media go along with this bull****? What if the Post and Times and networks simply said they wouldn't play by those rules? Oh, they'd lose "access," but they're not getting much of that anyway. Besides, when did official access become so valuable? It's a cheap and chintzy commodity. Not many great pieces of journalism have ever been constructed on a foundation of official access.

Then there are the rest of us to think about. The national media helps establish the tone for every reporter in the country, from the statehouses down to the rinky-dinkiest of school boards. Letting the White House review and revise its quotes is the worst possible example to be setting. It's already hard enough prying public records and information out of the hands of local officials without the Washington crew going all soft and scared on us. This country needs good journalism right now. It needs it a lot more than it's getting it.