PressThink: Stop Us Before We're Briefed Again

Stop Us Before We're Briefed Again

The headline at Romenesko caught my eye. "D.C. bureau chiefs: No more background-only WH briefings." Wow, I thought, they finally did it. They quit the racket. But no. They had not. They had sent an e-mail around, and asked Scott McClellan to change his ways...

1. The Just Quit Strategy. The headline at Romenesko caught my eye. “D.C. bureau chiefs: No more background-only WH briefings.” Wow, I thought, they finally did it. They quit the racket. But no. They had not. They had sent an e-mail around, and asked Scott McClellan to change his ways. They had vowed to object some more, later. Joe Strupp’s account in Editor and Publisher tells of it:

In an e-mail to several dozen bureau chiefs Monday, a group of top D.C. bureau bosses urged their colleagues to push more for on-the-record briefings when government officials deem them to be on background only.
“We’d like to make a more concerted effort among the media during the month of May to raise objections as soon as background briefings are scheduled by any government official, whether at the White House, other executive agencies or the Hill,” the e-mail said, in part.

Conspicuous for going unmentioned was one of the most effective ways the press can “raise objections” to background briefings: don’t go to them. Just quit. So here is my Letter to Romenesko on it, published May 3rd. It’s a good way to reach the professional community, which checks in at Romenesko’s place throughout the day.

I read it twice but I still don’t understand Joe Strupp’s story, particularly the part about the meeting between the big bureau chiefs and the White House press secretary. “Those in attendance said they asked McClellan to end the background-only briefings, citing a need to have more openness in their reporting.”
Odd. Why does the press have to ask McClellan to end these stealth briefings, when it could end its own participation at any time? The method for doing so isn’t complicated:

PODIUM: Don’t forget, background briefing at 11 am, previewing the President’s remarks with a nameless deputy press officer…

REPORTER 1: Great, that will give me time to answer e-mail.

REPORTER 2: Scott, when does the working part of the day resume?

Strupp reports his piece in a state of make believe, as if the bureau chiefs are pressing for changes that others ultimately have to make. But the chiefs and their reporters are co-producers of the “background” ritual. It takes two sides— briefers, briefees.

Joe Strupp’s passive tenses disguise the situation: “The bureau chiefs said the background briefings often occur once or twice a week at the White House, sometimes via conference calls. In most cases, they are done to give reporters a leg up before a major speech, presidential trip, or specific legislation being introduced or debated in Congress.”

So background briefings occur, and they are done, but correspondents don’t cooperate or show up when told. The stealth goes down ‘“via conference calls,” we are told, but of course there is no conference call without reporters on the line who dial the number and join the call. “Stopping” that is simple: hang up the phone. Don’t call in the first place. Do something else with your reporting time.

But active verbs like “join” and “attend” or “hang up” are left out because Strupp is letting the White House press see itself as helpless. “We tried to make the point that readers are sick to death of unnamed sources,” said Ron Hutcheson, a White House correspondent for Knight Ridder. “Scott listened and he said he would chew on it for a few weeks, but everybody felt like he would give it consideration.” Hear the news? He’s going to consider it! He going’s to consider it!

E & P’s headline: D.C. Bureau Chiefs Launch Push to End On-Background Briefings. Mine would be: Stop Us Before We’re Briefed Again.

How did this make believe happen? The key to it, I believe, is the word boycott. Joe Strupp and the bureau chiefs want us to think that such artless methods as “hang up the phone” and “answer e-mail instead of attending” are some high stakes confrontation. “None of those involved were ready to boycott such background briefings,” Strupp tells us. Boycott? No. The point would be to stop.

2. Strupp’s Letter Back. It’s a double shot of “I’m not an advocate, just a reporter” with a “please try to remember that” chaser. Off-the-shelf stuff, as newspaper columnist Mike Thomas might put it.

I appreciate Jay Rosen’s interest in my article on D.C. bureau chiefs seeking an end to background briefings. But I think he somehow wrongly lumps me in with this group. Saying “Strupp is letting the White House press see itself as helpless” makes it appear that I am advocating for them. That is not true. I am simply reporting what they are doing in reaction to a concern that has been building for months, if not years, about these background events.
I see Rosen’s point that the reporters could simply not attend these briefings, thus ending them. And I mention that in the story, adding that none of those I spoke with were willing to do so. It is obvious that, while they oppose these off-the-record events, they do not want to back off and let a competitor who is not willing to boycott, get the information.

It is also obvious that a boycott would send a stronger message, even if it risks losing out to a competitor. In addition, I think it is important to note that they do not want the briefings to end, but to be on the record.

But the point of my story was not to judge what they are doing, only to report it. Sometimes people with strong views on either side fail to remember that when reading news stories.

As for his pickiness on my use of active or passive phrases, well, I am sorry that he finds some conspiracy in my grammar. I assure you, none exists.

Nah, no conspiracy, Joe. You employed the passive tense and I said it helped you present the press as passive recipient of what the White House chose to do. That is a criticism of your writing, not a conspiracy in your grammar.

3. Strupp Interviews McClellan— Whoops. In a follow-up article, Strupp gets McClellan to reveal his tit-for-tat reasoning:

Scott McClellan, President Bush’s press secretary, said Tuesday evening that he would be glad to end the use of background-only briefings—if White House reporters would stop using anonymous sources in their reporting.
“I told them upfront that I would be the first to sign on if we could get an end to the use of anonymous sources in the media,” McClellan told E&P, referring to a meeting he had with a half-dozen Washington bureau chiefs last week… The bureau chiefs contend that the background-only briefings force them to use sourcing that is, essentially, anonymous, reducing their credibility.

Uh oh. Later in the day E & P ran a new story where McCllellan says Strupp, who quoted him, misunderstood; and by the end we get the ritual disclaimer: “E & P stands by its original report.” Right out of the script!

Meanwhile, I contend that the words “force them to use sourcing…” are, esssentially, false. (In that White House reporting remains a wholly voluntary practice.) Strupp—who has been captured by his sources on this story—is still participating in that falsehood. He does it by accepting the bureau chiefs’ fiction that unless everyone quits the “background” farce no one can. Therefore the only issue is whether a general boycott will be called. That too is false, but Strupp believes it. Thus:

None of the current Washington bureau chiefs who spoke with E&P were willing to hint at any boycott, citing the competitive atmosphere that would keep some from participating.
“I have never seen them succeed,” said Clark Hoyt, Knight Ridder newspapers Washington editor, explaining he has seen other failed attempts since he first began covering Washington 25 years ago. “We operate in a highly-competitive atmosphere. The better way is to build pressure.”

I understand that the trade magazine mentality is hard to overcome, but this is absurd. I have a lot of respect for Clark Hoyt and Knight-Ridder’s Washington bureau, too, but from the outside that “highly-competitive atmosphere” seems more like a club. All members agree that principled action is meaningless unless joined by other members. All sign on to the fiction that “essential” news is communicated in background briefings.

That’s not spirited competition; it’s conformity to a Beltway mindset.

4. The New York Times Account. The New York Times story, by Nat Ives, is a better work of journalism, containing more coherent explanations, not just “we tried boycotts, it doesn’t work.”

There is new imagery in it too: a causal chain from readers fed up with anyonymous sourcing generally, to editors getting the message, and top editors pressing the bureaus, and bureau chiefs pressing reporters, who are supposed to plead with McClellan, and, now, finally, the bureau chiefs themselves meeting with the press secretary.

The new discussions over background briefings are being driven largely by pressure from readers and news editors to reduce the use of anonymous sources.
“All of us have bosses who are increasingly disturbed by the use of anonymous sources,” said Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief for USA Today, who attended the meeting on Friday and attached her name to the e-mail message on Monday. “It’s one reason people say they don’t believe what they read in the newspapers.”

Sandy Johnson, the Washington bureau chief for The Associated Press, said the government’s message was undermined by background briefings. Allowing attribution would increase the credibility of the news media and the White House, she said.

Ron Hutcheson, a White House correspondent for Knight Ridder and president at the White House Correspondents Association, said he once walked out of a background briefing in protest.

But Friday’s meeting at the White House, which Mr. Hutcheson attended, seemed likely to produce better results, he said.

As the issue has drawn more attention, Mr. Hutcheson said, the administration has relented several times at reporters’ requests and converted background briefings into on-the-record sessions.

In Nat Ives’s story, the arguments are better framed. The bureau chiefs say pressure exerted over a long period of time is working, and this is one more step.

Mr. McClellan, who called Friday’s discussion constructive, said he had raised the bureau chiefs’ concerns within the White House. “I’m looking at ways to move forward on the issues raised,” he said.

Thus the “objection” to Strupp’s tit-for-tat quote.

5. Clark, Susan, Sandy, Ron and others in the room with McClellan: I understand your campaign of pressure, and why it asks Scott McClellan to end a practice you yourselves could end, for yourselves, at any time. I understand why you would scorn the “symbolic” walk out as theatrical (and appealing to certain bloggers) but ineffective. Mounting a boycott is high risk and heavy-handed, I have to agree.

But realize that another course of action is available. (Maybe you do and are not talking about it.) Withdraw from the background game entirely by changing your policy unilaterally, and as part of a move to raise transparency overall. Explain it that way to your readers. Tell them that while it may mean some stories and insights go missing, the benefits of ending your participation in a stealth practice far outweigh these losses. Something like…

This is a change others have tried to make. But they always went back to the background because competitors failed to follow them out the door. We are determined to leave that era behind because we know you discount a lot of reporting based on nameless sources. Our new policy is not an attempt to influence the “pack.” It is taken independently of what others in the profession may decide to do.
Backgrounders by officials of a major news making operation are no longer fair game for our reporters, period. We hope you like the change. We’re feeling good about it. But just to make sure we’re not kidding ourselves, we will track every story we missed by not being there.

And so on. That’s what I meant by: don’t join a boycott, just stop. It’s easily explained and more likely to build trust with users than it is to “cost” the operation in blown stories or missing nuance. So there is a choice apart from what the herd will do, and apart from what McClellan can be coaxed into. Strupp, our correspondent on the scene, never asked about that.

6. Trust and Interactivity. Notice, however, that long arc from the diffuse sentiment among disaffected readers to the meeting with McClellan seeking concrete results. In that series of relays and switches, a message is sent about what we trust and why we don’t.

As the word is passed we see public opinion trying to register itself in press behavior at the level of rules observed by the DC bureaus, and meetings held with White House officials. Other factors are present too, but there’s a clear arc of influence there— using “pressure” to communicate itself.

The new discussions over background briefings are being driven largely by pressure from readers and news editors to reduce the use of anonymous sources.

If instead of interference we saw this as a kind of instruction, from the public to the press, we might ask how a relay system like that is improved, tightened up, made flexible, and brought up to modern standards. We might see that a weblog, a far more flexible platform, has this kind of instruction system built into it.

That is what “interactive” means. Instead of a long arc you have a quick comment thread, or some other lightweight blip. There is constant interaction and adjustment to users. That constancy makes online journalism a different animal, and the demand for it is vexing “traditional” providers, who are organized to withstand public pressure, not to interact with intelligent users.

Down through the history of reportage, people who valued their correspondents (and paid for accurate reports) also had a way of instructing their correspondents. Maybe there is more room for this idea today.

After Matter: Notes, reactions & links…

Suburban Guerrilla, she’s had enough: “Absolutely, they should boycott this nonsense, and their bosses should back them. When are they going to figure it out? The real stories aren’t in the White House briefing room. They’re in the paperwork - and they’re out in the departments, where people are willing to talk.”

Dan Froomkin (he does the White House Briefing column in the Washington Post) says “background” events are as empty as all the other briefings by the Bush team.

The anonymity does not typically translate to frankness. The anonymous briefings tend to be as full of spin and empty of straight answers as the ones that are on the record. (Judge for yourself; the White House doesn’t post a lot of the background briefing transcripts, but some of them can be found here.)
Practically speaking, all that the cloak of anonymity does is hinder accountability and undermine journalistic credibility.

Precisely. Froomkin knows this one inside and out. And he has a lot of smart things to say about online journalism, blogging and editors.

“Wankers.” Atrios says my “don’t show up” solution is ideal.

But let me add a couple of other suggestions. First, if anonymous background briefings are here to stay, then the press can legitimize them to some degree by adopting one new standard of behavior — if the background briefer later contradicts publicly something said at the briefing, the anonymity is gone.
And, second, back to Jack Shafer’s longstanding suggestion — just leak the damn names to pesky bloggers like me. Most newspaper readers will lack the relevant information, but those who care to know can find out.

As ridiculous as they are, the anonymous background briefings aren’t the real problem - it’s the Judith Miller pressjob, in which reporters dutifully report administration official pronouncements as newsworthy, whether or not they contain any truth, believing their job is “not to collect information and analyze it independently.”

Chad the Elder has a humorous response at Fraters Libertas called Scott McClellan: Enabler.

Matt Welch says in comments: “To think that these White House reporters, operating in one of the freest press traditions in the world, are begging the guvmint to please save them from themselves, would be infuriating if it wasn’t so funny.” His suggestion:

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if large news organization engaged in a sort of Shock Therapy, whereby their entire Washington bureaus were sent on a one- or six-month vacation or job rotation, replaced by a gang of rank outsiders who would have to reinvent the local traditions from scratch. It’s hard to imagine the results being anything worse.

Earlier PressThink: To Liberate From the White House the White House Press.

Weldon Berger of BTC News has a reply to my post:

I’d go Jay one further and suggest that reporters report attempted anonymous backgrounders by describing the prospective subject and briefer.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan today asked reporters to attend an anonymous background briefing on the president’s upcoming trip from the White House residential wing to the Oval Office. The anonymous briefer was to have been McClellan himself. The newly reanimated White House press corpse declined to attend the briefing or preserve the anonymity of the briefer.

I’d also recommend that White House reporters enroll in the Helen Thomas seminar on How To Ask Annoying Questions That Need Answering But Are Marginalized Because No One Else (Except Eric Brewer) Is Asking Them Or Even Wants To. The press on the whole have lately been a little more feisty about asking important questions but are still not reporting, for the most part, that they aren’t getting answers.

There’s more to his post, “Please, sir, may I have another?”

Good question from FishbowlDC: “If reporters are really as (rightly) outraged about the practice as they say they are, shouldn’t they perhaps use their own soapboxes?”

“Go after the Iron Triangles.” Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation, a blogger with his own copy desk, has a view. He e-mails PressThink:

Those kinds of background briefings are commonplace throughout the federal government and became so a long time ago. The problem is everybody fears missing a big story and thus is afraid to say no when they know a rival will say yes. My suggestion is to restore a workable agency beat structure and day after day after go after stories on the government’s own Enron accounting scandals, subject every federal program to a rigorous, data-driven analysis of results or lack thereof and exposing the hypocrisy of the Iron Triangles (bureaucrats, special interests, politicans) that run this town.
It’s a myth that people don’t read government scandal stories. What they don’t read is agenda-driven pablum that never challenges the politicians and bureuacrats to justify their existence. Put another way, a non-ideologically anchored muckracking has the irresistible virtue of giving the hacks and hypocrits at all levels of government so much to worry about that they no longer have time to manipulate.

Terry Heaton, former TV news director, now a consultant, blogger and troublemaker, says starting a blog with PR intentions is a way of hiding:

In my view, when we shelter ourselves from the people in our communities — regardless of how we attempt to position it — we’re still participating in news as a lecture. We’re still playing our “big media” games with people. When we do so and call it a blog, I’m going to say we’re fooling ourselves.
So the question isn’t really “What are the rules?” but more “What’s the best way for me to participate?”

“What’s the best way for me to participate?” is exactly what does not get asked; he’s right about that. And he’s even more on in An open letter to TV news people, which is about the fantasy world local TV news professionals are living in.

Sydney Schanberg, the new PressClips columnist, wrote of this issue in the Village Voice:

Take Ron Hutcheson, the White House correspondent for the Knight-Ridder papers. He has been fighting the battle—and at times has found himself alone. When the White House billed a press briefing about a Bush foreign trip last year as on the record and then changed it on the spot to off the record, a couple of other journalists complained briefly. Hutcheson kept arguing for a return to the original ground rules or at least an explanation. It was futile. The anonymous official told him: “This is the way we do it. If you don’t like it, you can leave.” “I just got pissed off and I walked out,” recalls Hutcheson. None of the others followed him.
What would have happened if the rest of the newspeople at the briefing had also walked out? Well, not a great deal all at once, but a message would have been sent.

“It could turn into an embarrassment for the Bush stonewallers,” Schanberg wrote, adding a crucial qualifier. “Especially if reporters and editors were able to effectively explain to the American people why the press’s role is still so important to them.”

That is a mighty significant “if” today.

Posted by Jay Rosen at May 3, 2005 5:25 PM Print

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Raze Spin Alley, That Strange Creation of the Press: "Spin Alley, an invention of the American press and politicos, shows that the system we have is in certain ways a partnership between the press and insiders in politics. They come together to mount the ritual. An intelligent nation is entitled to ask if the partners are engaged in public service when they bring to life their invention... Alternative thesis: they are in a pact of mutual convenience that serves no intelligible public good." More...

Horse Race Now! Horse Race Tomorrow! Horse Race Forever!: "How is it you know you're the press? Because you have a pass that says PRESS, and people open the gate. The locker room doors admit you. The story must be inside that gate; that's why they give us credentials. We get closer. We tell the fans what's going on. And if this was your logic, Bill James tried to bust it. Fellahs, said he to the baseball press, you have to realize that you are the gate." More...

Psst.... The Press is a Player: "The answer, I think, involves an open secret in political journalism that has been recognized for at least 20 years. But it is never dealt with, probably because the costs of facing it head on seem larger than the light tax on honesty any open secret demands. The secret is this: pssst... the press is a player in the campaign. And even though it knows this, as everyone knows it, the professional code of the journalist contains no instructions in what the press could or should be playing for?" More...

Die, Strategy News: "I think it's a bankrupt form. It serves no clear purpose, has no sensible rationale. The journalists who offer us strategy news do not know what public service they are providing, why they are providing it, for whom it is intended, or how we are supposed to use this strange variety of news."More...

He Said, She Said, We Said: "When journalists avoid drawing open conclusions, they are more vulnerable to charges of covert bias, of having a concealed agenda, of not being up front about their perspective, of unfairly building a case (for, against) while pretending only to report 'what happened.'" More...

If Religion Writers Rode the Campaign Bus: "Maybe irony, backstage peaking and "de-mystify the process" only get you so far, and past that point they explain nothing. Puzzling through the convention story, because I'm heading right into it myself, made me to realize that journalism's contempt for ritual was deeply involved here. Ritual is newsless; therefore it must be meaningless. But is that really true?."More...

Convention Coverage is a Failed Regime and Bloggers Have Their Credentials: "No one knows what a political convention actually is, anymore, or why it takes 15,000 people to report on it. Two successive regimes for making sense of the event have collapsed; a third has not emerged. That's a good starting point for the webloggers credentialed in Boston. No investment in the old regime and its ironizing." More...

Philip Gourevitch: Campaign Reporting as Foreign Beat: "'A presidential election is a like a gigantic moving television show,' he said. It is the extreme opposite of an overlooked event. The show takes place inside a bubble, which is a security perimeter overseen by the Secret Service. If you go outside the bubble for any reason, you become a security risk until you are screened again by hand."More...

What Time is it in Political Journalism? "Adam Gopnik argued ten years ago that the press did not know who it was within politics, or what it stood for. There was a vacuum in journalism where political argument and imagination should be. Now there are signs that this absence of thought is ending." More...

Off the Grid Journalism: “The assignment was straightforward enough,” writes Marjie Lundstrom of the Sacramento Bee, “talk to people.” When a writer dissents from it or departs from it, the master narrative is a very real thing. Here are two examples: one from politics, one from music. More...

Questions and Answers About PressThink "The Web is good for many opposite things. For quick hitting information. For clicking across a field. For talk and interaction. It's also a depth finder, a memory device, a library, an editor. Not to use a weblog for extended analysis (because most users won't pick that option) is Web dumb but media smart. What's strange is that I try to write short, snappy things, but they turn into long ones." More...

A three-word phrase comes to mind; the first and last are "boo" and "hoo," and the middle rhymes with "duckity" ....

I once worked in a country where sources had the legal right to read their quotes before publication, change the ones they didn't like, and/or back out of the story altogether; where most sources (government and otherwise) expected to have their questions faxed in advance & to have their comments printed without using their name, and where papers routinely sold the bottom of Page Two for disguised propaganda. We treated the problem methodically -- state up front, at the beginning of most every interview, the conditions under which it was being conducted; and also refuse to operate under the conditions the sources preferred (especially if they were from government agencies or publicly traded companies). And even then, on those rare occasions we allowed for anonymity, we printed (or at least had a *policy* of printing) their precise reasons for wanting anonymity. Like, "said an assistant privatization minister, who requested anonymity for fear of losing his job."

It was a slight pain in the arse, but nothing more. To think that these White House reporters, operating in one of the freest press traditions in the world, are begging the guvmint to please save them from themselves, would be infuriating if it wasn't so funny.

And what's even more ridiculous is that their papers almost certainly would be able to obtain the exact same information from the wire services they subscribe to (AP, AFP, Reuters, Bloomberg, etc.). Sometimes I wonder what would happen if large news organization engaged in a sort of Shock Therapy, whereby their entire Washington bureaus were sent on a one- or six-month vacation or job rotation, replaced by a gang of rank outsiders who would have to reinvent the local traditions from scratch. It's hard to imagine the results being anything worse.

Posted by: Matt Welch at May 3, 2005 5:52 PM | Permalink

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if large news organization engaged in a sort of Shock Therapy, whereby their entire Washington bureaus were sent on a one- or six-month vacation or job rotation, replaced by a gang of rank outsiders who would have to reinvent the local traditions from scratch. It's hard to imagine the results being anything worse.
- Matt Welch

Matt, I have a Force of One at the ready.

My suggestion is to restore a workable agency beat structure and day after day after go after stories on the government's own Enron accounting scandals, subject every federal program to a rigorous, data-driven analysis of results or lack thereof and exposing the hypocrisy of the Iron Triangles (bureaucrats, special interests, politicans) that run this town.
- Mark Tapscott

Well, yeah, but who's going to pay for a bunch of national beat reporters? Most news organizations don't have a Washington Bureau budget the size of the Heritage Foundation's. There's a solution, but it lies outside of or parallel to the institutional press, and that's to develop a citizen press with the manpower and skills required to do that sort of work. There's no particularly good reason to restrict beat reporting to waste or accounting scandals either; there are other activities that have a more direct impact on daily living and dying than how the books are cooked.

Posted by: weldon berger at May 3, 2005 7:22 PM | Permalink

What I'd like to see is a public list of which news agencies submit to the "background briefings" system, and which ones have spines.

Having your name published on the "has spine" side of the list would count for something. Likewise the alternative...

Maybe Editor and Publisher could maintain this info, on a "still true" page? It would be much-appreciated public journalism.

Posted by: Anna at May 3, 2005 9:09 PM | Permalink

Or, go ahead and go. Then don't even mention it unless something earthshattering happens. Let them know you're there hoping some good information will be presented, but if anyone asks, then sorry, that didn't make the cut.
How much time does this really take out of a day? A week? Get a better story from other sources. Get off your duff as a writer and go find something interesting to write about. I would love to read some real news. The suggestion to cover "government's own Enron accounting scandals, subject every federal program to a rigorous, data-driven analysis of results or lack thereof and exposing the hypocrisy of the Iron Triangles (bureaucrats, special interests, politicans) that run this town" is good - that's exactly what I would like to see.

Posted by: ~K at May 3, 2005 9:28 PM | Permalink

Something is missing from the broad discussion about overuse of anonymous sources.

The practice continues because the news industry as a whole allows it to continue.

The issue is not confined to people in Washington. The news organizations that the bureaus represent apparently condone the practice – or they would do something about it.

The wire service clients that print or air the material without discrimination implicitly condone the practice – or they would at least stop spreading it.

The professional associations whose members report or edit this material condone it – if they do nothing about it.

The editors who don't challenge it condone it. The news managers who don't address the issue condone it. The Associated Press is a cooperative of its members.

Some people try to excuse widespread use of anonymous sources in Washington with the notion that "Everybody does it."

Many parents don't let their children use that rationale.

But the lowest common denominator enables our Washington press corps to allow itself to be used.

Maurreen Skowran
The News & Observer
Raleigh, N.C.

Posted by: Maurreen Skowran at May 4, 2005 2:50 AM | Permalink

Exactly, Weldon, a corps of citizen journalists doing what the media is supposed to do for all aspects of government - hold their feet to the fire. That is why my passion is to see the Blogosphere do for government what it has and is doing for the MSM. As for only covering cooked books, I agree there is much more to cover, which is why I also included doing data-driven (i.e. computer-assisted research and reporting, or what some people now refer to as "analytic journalism") assessments of every single government program to determine if it is doing what its advocates claim. I would expect a citizen journalist approach to provide a degree of comprehensive coverage that not even The New York Times approaches now with its massive D.C. bureau.

Posted by: Mark Tapscott at May 4, 2005 5:50 AM | Permalink

OK, ethics question: If you swear off the White House background briefings, are you also bound to swear off un-named sources like the board member who calls up after a press conference and says "Look, that was all dishonest. Here's what really happned, and here's where you can look to support what I'm telling you."

Posted by: Daniel Conover at May 4, 2005 2:02 PM | Permalink

What if all the crusading zealots get their way and backgrounders are only for attribution? If you think information coming out of the WH is bland now, wait until the backgrounders at the WH are forced to attach their name to said "information". I think the phrase "Pyrrhic victory" would apply here.

Posted by: kilgore trout at May 4, 2005 2:43 PM | Permalink

Jack Sheldon: Anonymous sources are one thing. An anonymous gaggle is another.

I would tend to agree, although there are those who feel that we should use no anonymous sources whatsoever. I feel like the deck is already stacked in favor of institutional power, and that anonymous whistleblowers are one of the few counterbalances to the power.

Of course, one man's heroic whistleblower is someone else's manipulative conspirator.

Posted by: Daniel Conover at May 4, 2005 5:02 PM | Permalink

Mark Tapscott: My apologies, I misunderstood your point. I thought you were saying the institutional press should reconstitute their national beats. Thanks for enlightening me, and vive la révolution.

Daniel Conover: Two different beasties? In the one instance, the government is foisting off anonymous briefings for, often, no good reason (in all the discussion, no one on the administration side has made any attempt to justify the practice). In the other, there's news to be had that can't be had directly from the source without damaging him or her. And the instruction on how to verify the information used to be the kind of thing reporters were required to get from anonymous sources; you couldn't go with a story unless it was confirmed by at least one independent sources, which is where your hypothetical guy is pointing the reporter.

Kilgore Trout: The backgrounders in question are by and large pointlessly anonymous; they represent the official administration line on whatever the subject is. Today is a case in point: were it not for yesterday's kerfluffle, this briefing by National Security Advisor Scott Hadley would likely have been attributed to a senior administration official. It's not as though reporters will suddenly develop an allergy to providing anonymity to sources, but people such as Hadley aren't sources: they're administration spokespersons holding a press conference in front of thirty or forty reporters. So I think you can count on reporters continuing with their over-liberal granting of anonymity to individual sources, and I think you can count on the administration insisting on anonymity when there's the slightest concern that attribution could create problems.

Jay, doesn't it seem more as though the papers are using irate readers as a cover than as an educational inspiration? "Hey, Scott, don't get mad at us: we're getting hate mail."

Not to say that the learning curve you describe isn't real, but I recall reporters and press critics bitching about the unattributed briefings for years, during most of which reporters and editors regarded readers as news-consuming lumps, and it hardly seems likely that AP, who have taken the organizational lead on the problem, have been objecting to the backgrounders for two years because of pressure from readers. I sort of doubt that Knight Ridder's Hutcheson was motivated by readers either. So the learning curve seems to me to be more one of the various organizations figuring out a way to do this without getting screwed by one another.

I'm wondering if you're seeing the instructional arc with respect to any other journalistic issues. I know both the NY Times and Washington Post had taken solemn oaths to reduce their reliance on and credulity with respect to anonymous sources, but the omsbudsmen at both institutions seem to think it didn't take.

And where's Len "We don't do mass actions" Downie at in all this? I don't remember seeing the Post mentioned anywhere.

Posted by: weldon berger at May 4, 2005 6:31 PM | Permalink

Could be. Doesn't matter for the point I was making, which is that demands from readers are getting through; there's conveyance there.

You know, I should have highlighted more the special nature of one argument the press honchos put forward:

Sandy Johnson, the Washington bureau chief for The Associated Press, said the government's message was undermined by background briefings. Allowing attribution would increase the credibility of the news media and the White House, she said.

This is an attempt at persuasion that advises the White House on how to add to its own credibility as a news provider, making the argument that "ours" and "yours" are interdependent. Thus: anonymous background sourcing hurts us on trust measures, and it hurts you.

What's factored out by arguments of this kind is the logic of culture war, in which one actor "makes" trust for itself by lowering the credibility of an adversary, rather than by trustworthy performance of its own.

My own view is that the White House wants empty, meaningless briefings that make for empty meaningless news accounts. It wants to lower the credibility of the press corps, and evacuate the news columns, so they have little of value in them and little importance in politics. Background briefings fit into that approach nicely.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at May 4, 2005 7:33 PM | Permalink

Backgrounders and anon sourcers are fine for developing the context of what is being talked about.

But as long as the Leftist Biased press is only looking for sound bites they can use to make Bush look bad, they won't be doing a job reporting the news -- nor in getting sources.

"embarassment for Bush stonewallers" -- ha ha ha! How many days has it been since Kerry promised to sign that you-know-what form? ha!
How many judicial nominees has Bush made that the Dems are stonewalling to avoid voting on? ha!
How close to bankruptcy does Social Security have to be before the Dems stop stonewalling change and admit the current system is unsustainable (at current expectations)? ha!

Most reporting on what Bush is doing, and not, is a joke of Leftist Bias looking almost exclusively for a Gotcha slip.

Yes, please boycott/ walk out unilaterally. And read the gov't web site and get real info/ pure spin directly. But as long as MSM advocates no alternative yet is convinced that each and every thing Bush accomplishes is bad, baad, baaahhhh; their business will be in ever greater jeopardy.

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at May 4, 2005 7:45 PM | Permalink

Daniel Conover -
"Of course, one man's heroic whistleblower is someone else's manipulative conspirator."

"Disgruntled [former] employee" is the term we use out West.

Posted by: Anna at May 4, 2005 8:14 PM | Permalink

Jay Rosen:

What's factored out by arguments of this kind is the logic of culture war, in which one actor "makes" trust for itself by lowering the credibility of an adversary, rather than by trustworthy performance of its own.

My own view is that the White House wants empty, meaningless briefings that make for empty meaningless news accounts. It wants to lower the credibility of the press corps, and evacuate the news columns, so they have little of value in them and little importance in politics. Background briefings fit into that approach nicely.

What a fascinating hypothesis.

I'm assuming that when you mention empty, meaningless briefings, you mean the "on the record" ones. Are background briefings also empty, meaningless briefings in your view?

If not, how exactly do full, meaningful background briefings combined with empty, meaningless public briefings combine to "evacuate the news columns, so they have little of value in them and little importance in politics" AND "lower the credibility of the press corps"?

I would also like to know if, in your view, the press engages in such culture war tactics as making "trust for itself by lowering the credibility of an adversary"? Specifically, who are the adversaries of the press? Government? Military? Business?

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 4, 2005 10:27 PM | Permalink

Tabloids, Talk Radio, and the Future of News, Footnote 70:

Many journalists argue that because politicians and the public are at least as much to blame (or more so) for today’s troubling political culture, there is nothing much to be done about it. However, Sissela Bok offers a powerful argument to the contrary in her paper "School for Scandal" (Joan Shorenstein Barone center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, April 1990, pp. 1-2). She argues that if journalists work differently, this can make a positive difference in our political culture: Just when peoples the world over look to our democratic traditions for guidance in how to safeguard fundamental rights, many in our own country feel trapped in a vicious circle of manipulative and trivializing political discourse. In any vicious circle, a number of factors contribute to a downward spiraling.... The way to begin to break out of such vicious circles is to bring about forceful change at as many points as possible of their downward spiraling. As social theorists have argued, vicious circles are dynamic systems, not static ones; by changing the direction and momentum of any one factor, all the others will be affected.

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 4, 2005 10:51 PM | Permalink

Jay,

Empty and meaningless? Well I suppose it wouldn't be hyperbole if you didn't employ more than one. PressThink here seems to be that if you make the caricature look stark enough you've accomplished something.

Posted by: Brian at May 4, 2005 11:09 PM | Permalink

Tim: The empty and meaningless was based in part on Dan Froomkin's account. He follows this stuff full time. The title of his column is "White House Briefing." He has written extensively about the emptiness and non-responsiveness of most Bush officials, most of the time; and he has written again and again about what makes the Bush team different.

The anonymity does not typically translate to frankness. The anonymous briefings tend to be as full of spin and empty of straight answers as the ones that are on the record. (Judge for yourself; the White House doesn't post a lot of the background briefing transcripts, but some of them can be found here.)
Practically speaking, all that the cloak of anonymity does is hinder accountability and undermine journalistic credibility.

I recognize that statements like "the White House wants empty, meaningless briefings that make for empty meaningless news accounts. It wants to lower the credibility of the press corps, and evacuate the news columns" don't sit well with some, just as I recognize that they cannot be proven in any definitive sense.

I gave you my sense of what's going on. And I believe it accounts for the evidence better than other interpretations.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at May 5, 2005 3:07 AM | Permalink

If journalists cannot name anonymous sources, what will they do all day? That is the justification for their existence, their access to people in government.

If they cannot do that job effectively, just taking notes from a briefing, then what do they do and why are they there? I might as well be fed the government's line directly?

Posted by: Tim at May 5, 2005 9:25 AM | Permalink

Jay: "And I believe it accounts for the evidence better than other interpretations."

What other interpretations?

Did you go to the White House site Froomkin linked? Can you help qualify: "The anonymous briefings tend to be as full of spin and empty of straight answers as the ones that are on the record."

When you say, "... just as I recognize that they cannot be proven in any definitive sense." How can I distinguish that from just another blind shot in the dark at motivations in the culture war? Specifically: "... in which one actor "makes" trust for itself by lowering the credibility of an adversary, rather than by trustworthy performance of its own."

It seems to me that you point is the performance of the press as trustworthy by attending and reporting empty, meaningless briefings, including anonymous ones. Yet, you don't seem to question the culture war motivations of the press in doing so.

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 5, 2005 10:48 AM | Permalink

I really can't answer Tim's question for the Washington press corps, which appears to be something of a special case. I can say that I agree (as I think most reporters would) with idea that we do too much stenography and not enough reporting.

As I understand the specific criticism of the people in the White House briefing room, it's that they've turned the stylized dance of reporter and source into something akin to Kabuki theater.

So how did we (the press) wind up in the position of doing something we hate (Kabuki with McClellan) on behalf of readers who uniformly despise the product? Talk about a lousy deal.

One problem is that we're getting conflicting advice. One side wants us to "stop being so negative." The other wants us to grow some cojones and stand for something. So far we've responded by splitting the difference.

I'm not sure what the ultimate answer will be, but I like the idea of just not going to those background briefings. Explain why, and go from there. It's not a solution, but maybe it's a start.

Posted by: Daniel Conover at May 5, 2005 11:20 AM | Permalink

What other interpretations? One would be: this is the normal give-and-take between White House and the press, the normal complaints about access to the President, news management, evasive spokesmen, and nothing new. Another would be: yes, the Bush White House is taking extraordinary steps because it faces extraordinary bias and hostility from a "liberal" press. Another would be: you're just saying that because you're anti-Bush and pissed he won the election (which isn't really an interpretation but a noise you hear at lot. I wish I had a word for that...)

But I would remind Sisyphus that this post was almost exclusively critical of the press, not the White House. I assume the White House is acting in its own best interests with its background rituals, and I am arguing that the press should do the same.

You lost me on this part:

Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying. I pointed out the logic of culture war. I didn't say it was exclusive to one "side," as it were.

The press uses triangulation methods to boost its credibility all the time. That's what he said/she said is all about. It's not really intended to portray a dispute accurately; its intended to locate the press safely between disputants. That's a method of generating authority. Doesn't work very well any more, if it ever did, but when it's all you know...

I think for those members of the Republican coalition who are having a hard time realizing that they and their allies are in power, part of the reason for gagging before the reality of new alignments is a certain addiction to the logic of culture war, which is a method of generating political momentum that requires your enemies to be the powerful, depraved ones.

You "rise" by fighting the corrupt power, and driving its negatives up. This is what people like David Brock and David Horowitz intimately understand. The warriors are always down deep innocent and they are oppressed; these are the emotions powering the whole thing. They simply do not fit with being in power, owning the big guns, and having responsibility for things.

As it gets harder and harder to maintain the culture war narrative, because bigger and bigger facts have to be held off (Republicans in charge of the White House, Congress, Supreme Court, and the electoral map trending their way...) the last theatre left for some of the grumbling, fuming, enemy-starved culture warriors on the Right is The Liberal Media-- Hollywood and newsroom divisions. (With college professors waiting off stage for their turn on the fence.)

I think some journalists are starting to figure out that a rope-a-dope strategy works well in situations like this. Chris Satullo's Liberal Media Re-Education Camp piece is a fine example of what I mean. You "give in" and let the warriors win because that befuddles them, whereas if you argue back, resist, that fuels their machine.

These are my speculations, of course. An interpretation you are invited to consider, and if warranted reject. I don't totally understand the logic of culture war myself. Try not to be a part of it, though.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at May 5, 2005 11:53 AM | Permalink

Thank you for offering those other interpretations. I agree with you that those interpretations are "out there". They are being spoken loudly by some. But I consider those interpretations the low hanging fruit, and not particulary useful. If your competing interpretations consists only of those, then are you critically examining your own?

I like this part:

I assume the White House is acting in its own best interests with its background rituals, and I am arguing that the press should do the same.

I think that identifies two of three or more attributes of (what Dan calls) this "Kabuki theater".

One you mention directly: ritual. Briefings occur because ritual requires it. If briefings do not occur, or occur less frequently than previously, then there are accusations associated with that. It's perhaps a time-driven event rather than an event-driven one.

Previously you mentioned the 100 year history of such briefings, starting with Roosevelt. That there is an established ritual, but it also has been dynamic across Presidents.

Another you allude to: (domestic) political economics and the associated ethics ("acting in its own best interests"). Here is a question of rational and irrational behavior. As I am trying to understand your interpretation, I am trying to delineate between what you see as rational and irrational behavior by the Bush administration in it's relationship with the press - and vice versa.

So, where I "lost" you, is in that attempt to delineate rational and irrational press behavior.

Do I understand correctly that you interpret empty, meaningless briefings as rational behavior by the Bush administration "in which one actor "makes" trust for itself by lowering the credibility of an adversary, rather than by trustworthy performance of its own."? You see this as rational behavior where the Bush administration is "acting in its own best interests", correct?

You advocate that the press act in its own best interests by not attending these briefings. That it is an irrational act by the press to attend and report these briefings. There is not a rational interpretation for what the press is doing.

You make the distinction that it might have been rational behavior by the press in the past, but no longer, because the briefings are today substantially different then they were previously. They are different because the Bush administration is treating them differently, whereas the press has remained constant in their behavior.

Besides ritual and (domestic) political economics, if those are correct terms, are there other attributes to White House briefings/Q&A?

Besides journalists, who are the other auditors of these briefings? I wonder if there is an attribute that accounts for the 'internationalization' of the "Kabuki theater".

But I would remind Sisyphus that this post was almost exclusively critical of the press, not the White House.

Uh, OK, thanks.

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 5, 2005 1:17 PM | Permalink

Jay: ..."gagging before the reality of new alignments..."? You certainly know how to turn a phrase. But the "gagging" is on both sides. The left/liberal/Dem side is slowly coming to grips with the fact that after decades of power, they no longer have it, hence all the "theocracy" hysteria. Same for the right/conservative/Republicans; after decades in the wilderness, they are just now coming to grips with the fact they have power, and they are wondering what the hell to do with it. This is the core of the "culture wars".

It's interesting that your comments are sometimes more illuminating that your original posts.

As for the off-the-record backgrounders, I agree with various commenters above that the press should either accept the status quo, or avoid them and use their time digging into "real" news.

Posted by: kilgore trout at May 5, 2005 1:57 PM | Permalink

"...the last theatre left for some of the grumbling, fuming, enemy-starved culture warriors on the Right is The Liberal Media-- Hollywood and newsroom divisions. (With college professors waiting off stage for their turn on the fence.)
I think some journalists are starting to figure out that a rope-a-dope strategy works well in situations like this. Chris Satullo's Liberal Media Re-Education Camp piece is a fine example of what I mean. You "give in" and let the warriors win because that befuddles them, whereas if you argue back, resist, that fuels their machine." - Jay, above. (emphasis mine)

What a fascinating look at the other team's play-book. Can you smuggle to us some more of it's pages, Jay?

Posted by: Trained Auditor at May 5, 2005 2:35 PM | Permalink

Well the idea here is to bash the press no matter what they do. Jay offers up plausible assssments and they fall on deaf ears due to listener bias. That's my out-of-the-fray assessment. A journalist however can determine where the facts rest.

Posted by: Jack Sheldon at May 5, 2005 3:16 PM | Permalink

"...the last theatre left for some of the grumbling, fuming, enemy-starved culture warriors on the Right is The Liberal Media-- Hollywood and newsroom divisions. (With college professors waiting off stage for their turn on the fence.)"
That pretty much nails it.
Once you control the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, most statehouses and state legislatures, a plurality of newspaper editorial pages, most of talk radio, much of cable TV and a good chunk of the blogosphere ... it becomes increasingly hard to maintain the pose of being among the beset, the beleaguered and the bitter.
Yet that pose is almost hard-wired into many of the newly victorious.
So the rest of us are treated to something new; we're all familiar with the aggrievement of the disenfranchised; but this is different: this is the aggrievement of the enfranchised.
In other words, what we have here is an identity crisis.
And that's never pretty to watch.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 5, 2005 4:58 PM | Permalink

Trout: There is no question that liberals and Democrats, too, are having trouble engaging with the new alignment, and with the reality of their years in the wilderness.

About comments vs. posts, I explained some of this in my Q and A about PressThink. I feel it takes one author (or speaking voice) for the titles and headlines, another for the post itself, a different voice in the After section, and another in the comments.

Tim (Sisyphus): I think the Bush Administration has made a decision that "empty" press relations are the best course of action for this White House and this President. That is what I meant by self-interest. They think it best basically to say nothing all the time, answer as few questions as possible, give as little information as possible, and confirm for journalists the pointlessness of what they are doing-- over and over and over.

I have said before that this is only part of a larger policy that includes the Bush Bubble, the principle of "friendlies only" at public events--even those, like the social security town halls, that are supposed to win over skeptical Americans--and the attempt to become a substitute news provider, to "be the press," as I have put it, or to buy favorable press as with Armstrong Williams and the like.

So if we mean by "rational" plans that cohere with each other and parts that fit into a whole, yeah, 'tis rational. If we mean "done with conscious intent," well, the bubble, the empty briefings, the blank spokesmen, the discrediting of the interlocutor, the rejection of Fourth Estate thinking, wasting journalists time so they are as unproductive as possible-- all conscious, all done with intent.

However, people do many things that are rational in isolation and do not add up to a rational course of action. Take the bubble for example. If you talk to pros in Republican politics and ask them if there was any moment when they were worried about Bush in 2004, and even thought they could go down, they will all say when he lost the first debate and it felt like he was unprepared. (I would say he was offended that he had to explain himself to anyone skeptical.)

It almost cost 'em big time on '04, but the bubble is still here.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at May 5, 2005 5:13 PM | Permalink

You've read the playbook; now the scrimmage: Above, Steve Lovelady kindly demonstrates the "rope-a-dope" play that Jay previously mentioned.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at May 5, 2005 6:18 PM | Permalink

... They think it best basically to say nothing all the time, answer as few questions as possible, give as little information as possible, and confirm for journalists the pointlessness of what they are doing-- over and over and over.

I have said before that this is only part of a larger policy that includes the Bush Bubble, the principle of "friendlies only" at public events--even those, like the social security town halls, that are supposed to win over skeptical Americans--and the attempt to become a substitute news provider, to "be the press," as I have put it, or to buy favorable press as with Armstrong Williams and the like.

I accept that as a good summary of the totality of your interpretation.

Did you get a chance to read Froomkin's Bush's Tricky Trip?

"A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said ..."

"The mix of images and agendas reflects the obstacles facing Bush as he pursues a foreign policy that, experts say ..."

Here's the transcript of national security adviser Stephen Hadley's on-the-record, on-camera briefing ...

But most of the questions Hadley faced were about the possible pitfalls.

Background Briefing?

"But some intelligence officials in Europe ..."

Margaret Carlson writes in her Bloomberg column about the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner -- and how it reflects the cozy relationship between the press and the president.

And so on ...

Steve Lovelady:

Once you control the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, most statehouses and state legislatures, a plurality of newspaper editorial pages, most of talk radio, much of cable TV and a good chunk of the blogosphere ... it becomes increasingly hard to maintain the pose of being among the beset, the beleaguered and the bitter.

Naw, everyone's a victim these days.

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 5, 2005 8:39 PM | Permalink

Seems to me the debate over background briefings and the use of anonymous sources is a bit of a Slate red herring. There are more important issues for sure in big time journalism and politics.

Scott McClellon is a dweeb who has no idea what he is talking about when he says "the public" is concerned about journalists using anonymous sources. The mass public first of all doesn't read newspapers and, second, wouldn't know what an anonymous source was if asked a direct question about them.

The Poynter headline that caught my attention today was this: Reporters Are Not Scum.

My post was based on a column by Charlie Mitchell, managing editor of the Vicksburg Post.

Posted by: Glynn Wilson at May 5, 2005 8:53 PM | Permalink

"Naw, everyone's a victim these days."
Posted by: Sisyphus

Precisely.
It's so much easier to maintain that pose than it is to admit that YOU are in charge.
That is an infinitely scary and uncomfortable reality. Much more uncomfortable than standing on the sidelines throwing mudballs at those whom you imagine, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, are, somehow, still in charge.
Because to admit that you are in charge is to invite the mudballs.
Thus it is that we get rhetoric five years out of date -- witness this thread.
Human nature -- it never changes.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 5, 2005 11:22 PM | Permalink

Steve Lovelady: Human nature -- it never changes.

No, it doesn't. Neither do the arguments and criticisms. They just change sides.

The liberal media bias deniers will become the conservative media bias hunters. The liberal media bias hunters will become the conservative media bias deniers.

Yes?

You and the other religiously detached, objective, non-partisan horserace announcers will continue to throw mudballs.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose?

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 6, 2005 12:51 AM | Permalink

My point is that the Bush administration can do what it wants. If it decides to make these briefings meaningless so be it. It shows that the Bush administration sees the press as another special interest group.

As long as the public see the press act like another special interest group, the Bush administration will be successful.

On the other hand, the Bush administration has had trouble getting its message communicated (Social Security, Patriot Act). They do not see the press as a way to effectively get their message across. As anyone would do, you do what you think will work.

The question is are the Bush's right? Can they get their message for Social Security and the Patriot Act across with the editorial comment hidden in newspaper articles?

If so, the meaningless briefings will continue.

Posted by: Tim at May 6, 2005 8:11 AM | Permalink

Dan: Is being religiously detached and non-partisan a problem?

Having a process to come close to the ideal? No. As dogma, a religion, an umbrella and crutch? Yes.

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 6, 2005 3:03 PM | Permalink

Sisyphus: Having a process to come close to the ideal? No. As dogma, a religion, an umbrella and crutch? Yes.

Lovelady: But what if it's neither a dogma, nor a religion, nor an umbrella nor a crutch ? What if -- as mind-boggling as the thought may seem to the partisan mindset-- it's an objective description of an American majority skeptical of all easy answers ?
Woudn't that be something !
I know, I know -- the earth trembles.
But take a moment to ponder the possibility.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 6, 2005 10:03 PM | Permalink

Steve Lovelady: ... it's an objective description of an American majority skeptical of all easy answers?

Ah yes, the objective description of objectivity. Not the least bit tautological.

Here's a thought - as mind boggling as it may seem to the priests of objectivity - the majority of people in American (or anywhere else for that matter) aren't objective. Journalists on deadline with restricted column space LOVE the easy answer and substitute he said/she said for fairness, calling it objectivity.

I know, I know - the earth trembles back. In fact, the "first draft of history" is practically guaranteed to be incomplete, wrong and subjective.

Yet, objective faith doesn't allow that. So, the journalist can't be wrong, only the critics who are obviously partisan minded for disagreeing. Right, Steve?

Take moment to ponder all you know about human psychology, observation, interpretation, language, and the constraints of the medium and how what you wrote above is the easiest answer there is. No depth, just faith. What did Jay call it? The "truth content of a Sousa march".

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 7, 2005 1:46 AM | Permalink

In fact, the "first draft of history" is practically guaranteed to be incomplete, wrong and subjective.
-- Ummm, Sisyphus, I make my living pointing out daily where they are incomplete, wrong and subjective. You think being free of partisan passions inoculates one from the certainty of being incomplete, wrong and subjective ?
Not on any planet I've ever lived on.

No depth, just faith. What did Jay call it? The "truth content of a Sousa march".
-- Jay wasn't describing my position, Ace. He was describing yours and your ilk. Check it out yourself. Let's see if you have the research skills of a slow 12-year-old.
(Hint: It involves the word "Sousa" and the use of your search software.)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 7, 2005 11:51 PM | Permalink

Despite indignant protestations to the contrary, hidden agenda journalists robe themselves in the vestments of objectivity for political advantage. They know a presumed impartial referee is considered more credibile to most than a confessed ideologue; and they have found the influence which results from that (false) credibility to be most useful in influencing the flock.

They cannot admit this to you, Sisyphus, because if they did it's more likely that their message would be subjected to wary readers' thoughtful scrutiny, which they prefer to avoid.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at May 8, 2005 1:08 PM | Permalink

Steve Lovelady: "You think being free of partisan passions inoculates one from the certainty of being incomplete, wrong and subjective?"

No, I think you feel inoculated and superior based on the self-serving lie you tell yourself about being free of partisan passions.

"Jay wasn't describing my position, Ace. He was describing yours and your ilk. Check it out yourself. Let's see if you have the research skills of a slow 12-year-old."

I was describing your position, Ace, with Jay's phrase. Sorry if you didn't "get" that. It's not only accurate from Jay's comment, which I looked up before quoting him, it's also an accurate description of you as an ideologue.

You will also notice, if you can find it on your own, that Jay wasn't describing my position.

As far as displaying the characteristics of a slow 12-year-old, you've done a pretty good job lately with your schoolyard comments.

Please, tell us Steve, who are my "ilk"?

Posted by: Sisyphus at May 8, 2005 11:09 PM | Permalink

I would never attempt a complete psychoanalysis, Sisyphus, nor would I try to assign motive from afar --but for starters we can begin with the unwitting self-portrait offered up in your latest post.
Based on that, your "ilk" at the very least includes those who resort to insult and namecalling ("self-serving liar" and "ideologue") rather than civil response when confronted by a point of view at odds with their own.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 9, 2005 11:09 AM | Permalink

For the record, I'm a journalist who believes in the discipline and practice of objectivity.

I understand and concede that I am an imperfect, subjective human being, and that my attempts at objectivity are always open to criticism and interpretation. As I've said before, humans are subjective. Objectivity is a process.

I disagree with those who think that objectivity should be junked in favor of transparent subjectivity. Instead, I believe that objective information is a valuable commodity, and we would be foolish to reject it. I think there is plenty of room for transparent subjectivity, by the way.

I would prefer to see some thoughtful work done on defining standards for a workable, real-time process of objectivity. Not only should we define standards that we could use in our work, we should also publish those standards so that readers and critics could compare a writer's performance to a fixed mark.

If I do a good job of following the discipline of objectivity, I want my work to be respected for it. As things stand now, anyone who disagrees with my findings can dismiss them with a casual "it's biased" comment that is not subject to any of the rigors we demand of working journalists.

I think Steve is to be commended for sticking up for objectivity. It's an unpopular position to defend on most media sites.

Posted by: Daniel Conover at May 9, 2005 1:15 PM | Permalink