Behind the News

The Greenhouse Effect (Updated)

Hurricane Linda blows C-SPAN cameras away

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For Supreme Court buffs who watch C-SPAN, yesterday morning was one of disappointment. A promising panel discussion, “Covering the Court(s): Reporters on the Supreme Court Beat,” that included a bevy of court reporting superstars — like Charles Lane from The Washington Post and Dahlia Lithwick from Slate — was to be televised. But, at the last minute, the plug was pulled on the C-SPAN cameras because the queen bee of Supreme Court reporters, Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times refused to join the panel if the event was going to be covered by the wonky news channel.

According to people who were there, Greenhouse walked in, took one look at the lights and the camera equipment, and, “became infuriated,” said one person who was standing near her. As Greenhouse herself told me yesterday following the event, she then gave the organizer of the panel an ultimatum. “I told her she had a choice, either she could have me on the panel speaking candidly or she could have C-SPAN there.”

Greenhouse said that she had come prepared to speak to a “room of academics.” She added, “I didn’t want to have to modulate my comments for a national audience.”

The source of her fury seemed to be that she wasn’t warned that the event was going to be televised. But according to the organizer, Amy Gajda, a non-tenured professor from the University of Illinois who, with much difficulty, had managed to organize the star-studded panel and the media attention, an email was sent the night before telling them about the C-SPAN coverage. Other panelists have confirmed this, and fail to understand Greenhouse’s objection. Lyle Denniston, who covers the court for SCOTUSBlog, said, “The moderator of the panel had told me in an e-mail…that it would be covered by TV. Television is part of the news media, and I strongly support its access to cover public events.”

To add to the strangeness of her reaction, Greenhouse did not then demand that the discussion be off the record, only that C-SPAN not film it. Sitting in the front row of the conference room was even an audience member with a press badge. He was not asked to leave.

Gajda, the organizer, found herself, “between a rock and a hard place.” She wanted the C-SPAN attention, but she also knew she would be doing a disservice to her audience if she excluded the marquee attraction, Greenhouse. “When we analyzed the way we did, very quickly, we realized that it would leave a very big hole on the panel,” Gajda said. “And we decided to place a priority on out first constituency, the members at the conference.”

Sending a C-SPAN crew is a big outlay for the low-budget network. The Vice-President of programming at C-SPAN, Terence Murphy, fired off an angry letter yesterday evening at the organization that put on the discussion, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. “I must say, it’s perplexing as to why Ms. Greenhouse didn’t want to permit C-SPAN to cover her remarks, since our program archive lists 51 different events where we’ve covered her over the years,” wrote Murphy. “But the larger concern is why AEJMC organizers allowed Ms. Greenhouse’s view to prevail. If professors of journalism and working journalists taking part in a journalism education conference don’t stand up for open media access to public policy discussions, who will?”

Perhaps the longtime Times reporter has grown wary of too much public attention because of the bad press she received last summer after a speech she gave at Radcliffe College. Critiquing the actions of the Bush administration, she seemed to declare herself anti-war and against the pro-life movement, lamenting, among other things, the “hijacking of public policy by religious fundamentalism.” When these remarks were picked up by NPR, she was criticized by certain media critics, like Howard Kurtz, for exposing too much of her subjective viewpoint.

Maybe she’s just become more careful and didn’t want to risk saying anything controversial — or maybe she simply didn’t feel like appearing on television yesterday. Either way, the result was the same. At the very least, the public was denied the chance to listen in on what turned out to be an interesting discussion. And at worst, a New York Times reporter used the power that comes from being associated with the Times to prove nothing more than that she could get her way.

UPDATE: Linda Greenhouse has written a letter in response to C-SPAN in which she defends herself against their accusations. In it she claims that the “issue is not one of ‘open media access to public policy discussions,’” as C-SPAN’s Terence Murphy wrote in his letter, but “one of communication and simple courtesy.” Ignoring the question of whether she received an email warning her that C-SPAN was going to be present, Greenhouse writes, ” I learned about the plan to
cover the Supreme Court panel only when I showed up and saw the cameras. Prof. Gajda
told me yesterday that she had only learned at 5:00 p.m. the day before that C-Span
intended to cover our panel.”

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Comments

Bruce Newman

Fri 10 Aug 2007 01:17 PM

Underlying the acid raincloud stirred up by CJR's "Hurricane Linda" piece is a fundamental--but increasingly common--misunderstanding of the rules: Just because someone sends you an e-mail the night before you're scheduled to show up for some event doesn't mean you've "received" it. Unless the assumption is that we are all to be enslaved by our Blackberries and iPhones, day and night, an e-mail that has not been read and replied to, cannot be said to have been "received." Gal Beckerman comes to the spurious conclusion that Linda Greenhouse has ignored the question of whether she received the organizer's e-mail, a point immediately contradicted by Ms. Greenhouse's assertion that she didn't know C-SPAN would be at the event until she got there and saw the cameras.

Daniel

Fri 10 Aug 2007 01:21 PM

There's a real dumb idea hidden in all this. If Greenhouse and her ilk think that any panel is somehow less public than some other panel, they are cruising for a bruising. Ask Eason Jordan about that one.

The idea that's in flux here is what kind of public persona journalists are supposed to adopt, and the subject is an enormous mess. The ethos I learned as a cub is now in conflict by the new ethics I've learned by being online; our monastic-style ideal puts us in conflict with both ourselves and basic observation, since print journalists who agree to speak provocatively tend to get more airtime and, ultimately, greater prestige and financial reward.

But enough with the prima donna outrage and the handwringing about criticism. If you agree to speak in public, speak in public. If it matters to you whether it's nominally a private setting or a televised one, then its time to examine your integrity. Candor may be dangerous, but selective candor is hypocritical -- and therefore deadly.

michael

Fri 10 Aug 2007 03:45 PM

Before I could venture an opinion on Ms. Greenhouse's decision, I would like to know: Who, or which organization, sponsored and organized this "panel"? Where was it held? Who else, besides the two people you mentioned, was on the panel? Were those invited told (before the email you cited) that the discussion open to all, including the media, and was therefore on-the-record?
Did other reporters cover the event?
This information would be helpful.

Max E. Edison

Fri 10 Aug 2007 04:13 PM

I don't know what Ms. Greenhouse was going to say that she could not say to a national audience. She should know better. With cellphone cameras, etc., A panel discussion is just a public as shouting something on the village square. She must think she is a judge or some other important person, rather than just a small step up from a police reporter.

Max E. Edison

Fri 10 Aug 2007 04:15 PM

I don't know what Ms. Greenhouse was going to say that she could not say to a national audience. She should know better. With cellphone cameras, etc., A panel discussion is just as public as shouting something on the village square. She must think she is a judge or some other important person, rather than just a small step up from a police reporter. What is she afraid of?

Dexter Westbrook

Fri 10 Aug 2007 04:48 PM

I would suggest C-Span, from this point forward, decline to broadcast events in which Ms. Greenhouse is a participant. This may mean C-Span may not be covering some abortion rights marches.

The fact that the journalism professor didn't just tell Ms. Greenhouse to buzz off is embarrassing. She is a poor public speaker anyway, and a panel with Lyle Denniston and Dahlia Lithwick only would be well worth listening to.

outback71

Fri 10 Aug 2007 05:07 PM

Just another nail in the coffin of the mainstream media.

TVnewsWA

Fri 10 Aug 2007 06:19 PM

Greenhouse is arrogant and ignorant and obviously not understanding of the idea of appearing on a panel. Is everyone in attendance supposed to have their memory wiped clean upon leaving the discussion?

Jaywynne

Fri 10 Aug 2007 09:25 PM

This is incident presents a wonderful opportunity for AEJMC to incorporate Bill Moyers' wonderful and exciting analysis of Journalism today, the speech he gave the day Ms. Greenhouse behaved like a Rove-trained White House lackey. How sad that Ms. Gajda does not grasp the inherent concepts Mr. Moyers enunciated for teachers and practicioners of journalism.
They both should be ashamed of themselves.

E Joseph West

Sat 11 Aug 2007 06:00 AM

Linda Greenhouse has been a strange and weird character for many years: just ask her opinion of the 10th Amendment and watch her reaction.

oorfenegro

Mon 13 Aug 2007 10:31 AM

As someone who occasionally speaks on panels, I always assume that somebody in the press is covering the event. While it's obvious when TV is covering an event, a radio reporter could have been broadcasting live or for a later live broadcast without Greenhouse's knowledge. I don't understand Greenhouse's beef. We as journalists get mad when we're told that we can't cover an event where the general public is invited so I don't understand why Greenhouse, or any other journalist would object to having cameras cover a public event where they are speaking or participating in as part of a panel

muckymuck

Mon 13 Aug 2007 01:59 PM

Whether she read the e-mail or not, Greenhouse's Scalia-like behavior is illustrative of the height of media elitism where some journalists think themselves so hallowed, important and above reproach that they forget who they really and ultimately work for -- the general public.
If you can't say anything in public that you can't say in front of a TV camera, stay home or refrain from public speaking activities.

I'm a fellow journalist -- Ruben Rosario, a columnist at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I do many panels, and I am willing to talk publicly about what I do and most of what I know with everyone, from the Supreme Court Justice to the one who cleans his or her office toilet.

C-Span got dissed big time here. I would have bounced Greenhouse off the panel and allowed the station to shoot it with the other two panelists.