One of the classic ethical questions in journalism—how much distance should a reporter keep from his sources and subjects?—is back in the news this week, propelled by a backyard “beach party” hosted by Vice President Joe Biden for White House staffers and D.C. journalists. The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder kicked off the discussion with a pair of posts explaining why he decided to attend. “A bunch of really good, hardened, news-breaking, interest-accountable holding reporters are in fact able to share more comfortable moments with people they cover,” Ambinder wrote, while acknowledging the explanation wouldn’t satisfy all critics.
He was right about that. Frequent press critic Glenn Greenwald declared that “all of this just helpfully reveals what our nation’s leading ‘journalists’ really are: desperate worshipers of political power who are far more eager to be part of it and to serve it than to act as adversarial checks against it.”
It’s worth noting that the challenges here aren’t unique to Washington: they can occur in any community in which journalists interact socially with powerful people, which is to say most communities. But to push this debate forward a bit, we want to know: Is there an argument to be made that going to a function like this could actually be journalistically beneficial? And for the working journos out there: If you were invited to an equivalent event in the town/city/state you cover, would you attend, and why?
The conventional wisdom says 'no', from GGreenwald and his cronies. Tell me that none of them are wined and dined by lobbyists and other interested parties. My preference says that a good journalist sees both sides of issues and reports them. You need to go into the enemy;s camp, so to speak, to see how they live and think. A differing perspective, yes, that gives you a background =. You can remain objective. All of us, in our varying professions face the same ethical issues, it is our duty to report what we see and learn , and part of that is obtained through our experiences.
#1 Posted by pris, CJR on Wed 9 Jun 2010 at 10:15 PM
The conventional wisdom says 'no', from GGreenwald and his cronies. Tell me that none of them are wined and dined by lobbyists and other interested parties. My preference says that a good journalist sees both sides of issues and reports them. You need to go into the enemy;s camp, so to speak, to see how they live and think. A differing perspective, yes, that gives you a background =. You can remain objective. All of us, in our varying professions face the same ethical issues, it is our duty to report what we see and learn , and part of that is obtained through our experiences. Some of us do it better than oithers.
#2 Posted by pris, CJR on Wed 9 Jun 2010 at 10:16 PM
"GGreenwald" lives in Brazil, and would therefore find it difficult to wined and dined by Washington lobbyists. (I don't know who his "cronies" are so can't speak for them.)
Rather than examining the records for real information and covering the people on the receiving end of the policies Washington passes, journos prefer to pander because, let's face it, real journalism is hard, and doesn't get you invited to many beach parties.
And why would a politician grant any inside information to a reporter whose written critical things about him, when Politico stands ready to report exactly what they want America to know?
#3 Posted by Rob, CJR on Wed 9 Jun 2010 at 10:39 PM
It's just a dumb idea these days, especially when they require that everything at the social event be "off the record."
Look, they can invite anybody, including anyone with a blog, and anyone should be able to write about whatever. In the old days that didn't make sense, but now everyone is a publisher.
I've been writing about this on my Scott Yates blog for a while, it just drives me nuts how they are trying to hold on to traditions that just don't make sense any more.
#4 Posted by Scott Yates, CJR on Thu 10 Jun 2010 at 01:09 AM
Daryl Gates' real legacy - LA Observed - David Cay Johnston
Read this remarkable piece by superstar journalist David Cay Johnston and his relationship with LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates. The kind of relationship with his source/subject that Johnston describes is exactly what the reader expects of the ideal journalist, and as a long-time LA Times reader I remember his coverage of Daryl Gates very well. That was in the days when the LA Times was a great newspaper. Can you picture these two adversaries romping together in Gates' backyard, squirting each other with water guns? Well, I think that Johnston may accept the invitation, but not for the reasons you might think.
Is there an argument to be made that going to a function like this could actually be journalistically beneficial? And for the working journos out there: If you were invited to an equivalent event in the town/city/state you cover, would you attend, and why?
I would really, really like to get Mr. Johnston's view about this. Could one of you Editors ask him?
My own feeling is the answer --can it be beneficial? -- is no, not in Washington. Washington journos and their sources already have drinks together, travel together, dine together, twitter together, text each other, sleep with each other, and marry each other. It's one big back-slapping Insider Club anyway, and the journalism coming out of the city already has a distinctive odor of stink.
So the question is -- can it be beneficial to whom? To the journo? Sure! To the reader? No way.
#5 Posted by James, CJR on Mon 14 Jun 2010 at 11:43 PM
And then there are the following insights:
By Andrew Sullivan:
///[Mike Allen's] role, he seems to believe, is to become very very close to people with power, to become their friends and confidants, in order to get an advantage over delivering the messages those people want to deliver. And if he can become their main outlet, he gets more status in Washington as someone more connected than anyone else, he garners more pageviews for press releases from often anonymous power-brokers, and thereby generates more money for an organization he helped found.
This is what Washington journalists think is their job; and they value one another by the proximity of their ties to the powerful. In a business sense, they can also brag about their close ties to Cheney as a way to get major corporations to buy ads under the impression that the powerful read the Politico. This is the model. And it's a problem.///
and then Glenn Greenwald:
//Journalists who work for the largest media outlets are nothing more than corporate employees -- no different than the Accounting Manager or Sales Representative in a non-media division. All people who work in large corporations know what is expected of them, know what can advance or undermine their careers. There's just no incentive for corporate journalists to be hostile or even adversarial to the powerful; the opposite is true: their career incentives are for them to be as friendly as possible. There are all sorts of other, frequently noted reasons why our major journalists are largely so subservient to political power: that's how lazy journalists secure access and thus "scoops"; corporations in general tend to hire people whose instincts are to please and accommodate authority rather than work against it; journalists now reside in the same socioeconomic circle and celebrity culture as the politicians they cover, etc. etc. But ultimately, corporate ownership of the largest media outlets means there are structural impediments to an adversarial press corps.///
So, to the question "Is there an argument to be made that going to a function like this could actually be journalistically beneficial?" the answer is sure -- to the journalist. But to journalism? I don't think so. And certainly not to the public. Certainly not to the public.
#6 Posted by James, CJR on Tue 15 Jun 2010 at 07:31 AM
James, and a CJR editor, asked me to weigh in so...
Per se I have no problem with journalists going to a barbecue, lunch, dinner or party with people they cover. It is not my style, but I have done it. Had Daryl Gates invited me to his condo or his Orange County place for lunch I would have gone. I would not have engaged in squirt gun fights, but that is probably more my nature than anything relevant to how journalists should behave.
The problem is less with keeping your distance and more with keeping your skepticism. I now serve on four boards (three nonprofits, one a business I partly own) and I see that there is the same tendency to not ask the obvious and hard question that anyone who watches televised news conferences can observe. I am friends or relatives with the people on these boards and often find I am alone in asking the hard question, but when I do everyone else follows up until the problem is dealt with. Sadly, I see far too much soft balling by journalists and especially White House journalists. THAT is the problem.
Journalists should ask the hard questions that no one wants to ask, but that need to be asked. The politeness of aversion and denial in a social context are not appropriate for journalism. That does not mean being rude. Good manners matter and should be used except when abandoning them is, for the specific reasons of the moment, the better option.
Another side of this coin is trust. Politicians (and others) who distrust reporters or a specific reporter are unlikely to be candid, whether they are on the record or on background. Journalists owe fidelity to the source -- to expressing their point in terms that get their point across, after which they can critique it all they need.
I am troubled not just by the breakdown in skepticism, in getting stuff on the record and in failing to ask hard questions, but also by reports that lack the nuance and respect for the source's perspective.
Go to the party if you want to get to know the sources, but always ask the tough questions and pursue answers, even if it means you are not invited to another party.
#7 Posted by David Cay Johnston, CJR on Tue 15 Jun 2010 at 02:21 PM
Mr. Johnston,
Thank you for being responsive and thank you for your thoughtful post. You have left us much to chew on there.
It's interesting that you bring up the issue of fidelity to the source and accurately and faithfully reporting his perspective. That's an aspect that bears more discussion -- from the reader's perspective it is the trivial, superficial nature of the questions that aren't meant to report information but to speculate on motivation and provide fodder for insider gossip. That's why Ed Henry's antics as recorded in real time via twitter was so disturbing. It wasn't, to me, the party per se, it was that the twittering confirmed our suspicions about how utterly unserious and unprofessional these reporters are. And we are expected to take them seriously.
#8 Posted by James, CJR on Tue 15 Jun 2010 at 11:46 PM