Journalmalism
Mar 28th, 2006 at 4:22 pm by Susie
This is what passes for the “real” media these days - the Post agreed to keep a meeting with Bush off the record:
Does that strike others as a bit strange? The Post (or at least its employees) agreed to withhold information from readers that it clearly viewed as news, in exchange for whatever it would gain from these private sessions. Now, one might argue that the basic principle underlying arrangements such as this one are defensible. After all, reporters at least sometimes agree to withhold information from readers — such as the identity of sources — in order to have off-the-record conversations that ultimately result in more information going to readers than otherwise would have been possible.
Yet this isn’t just any ordinary source, of course. It’s the president of the United States. Isn’t the prospect of withholding news from readers about the president too serious an omission to be justified by whatever supposed benefits the sessions bring? Also, unlike when an investigative reporter gets hard info from an anonymous source, these sessions aren’t about transmitting hard info; they’re about reporters gaining “insight into his thinking and concerns,” as The Post put it. But will readers really benefit from this, given that these alleged insights are based on conversations the reporters can’t disclose in the first place?
The Times, for its part, decided depriving readers of such info couldn’t be defended.
The same WaPo that hires a rabid Red Stater ‘opinionist’ to balance their journalists?
I’m shocked–SHOCKED, I tell ya.
Now, if you were the head honcho at the Washington Post, and you were privy to other private conversations with the powers that be, and you knew that there would be a war on Iran before the November elections, and that those elections will return GOP victories no matter what the voters think, well . . .
you’d look after your newspaper by being on the Right side of things when it matters most to the powers that be.
If you knew the shit that’s comin’ down, you’d put away the fan when you’re instructed to.