On Monday, ABC News reporter Terry Moran broadcast President Obama’s off-the-record assessment of Kanye West’s MTV Video Music Award antics (“jackass”) to the world, via Twitter, before quickly deleting his tweet.
According to The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz, Moran learned of the remark via a CNBC interview feed that was available to other news outlets; other ABC employees had actually considered blogging the exchange before deciding not to. (Presumably Moran was not part of this conversation, though it’s not quite clear from the account.) Afterwards, ABC apologized profusely to the White House and CNBC, releasing a statement that said the too-fleet tweet went out “before our editorial process had been completed,” and vowing that it was “taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.”
Just what those steps will be, though, was left unspecified, and they’re not immediately obvious. Much of the appeal of Twitter, after all, is its streamlined (or nonexistent) “editorial process.” So: other than reminding reporters to pay close attention to “off-the-record” guidelines, is there anything news outlets can do to prevent this sort of faux pas? And if they can, should they? Would the trade-off be worth it?
Well we already know, if you follow Twitter, that most of these journos are adolescent, vain gossip-mongers, and seem to be living and relating to the world as though it were a scene from Star Wars. Most of them have apparently never progressed through to adulthood.
So the "editorial process" isn't going to help there, I don't think. But do you think that having a little editorial supervision might prevent an egregious black eye like Moran's breach of ethics?
After all, these guys are publicly representing the news organization, and it is the organization's credibility on the line. Forget that it was the President, who is going to trust ABC to honor an off-the-record agreement when it's clear that ABC journos are eager to publicly air it as gossip on twitter. Is that what a news organization is willing to tolerate, to be "cool"? There are ethics and standards of practice at stake here, I think.
#1 Posted by James, CJR on Tue 15 Sep 2009 at 01:44 PM
Can someone familiar with TV journalism explain to me the etiquette that underlies the sharing of network video feeds? I thought—in theory, at least—that journalists weren't supposed to feel beholden by any off-the-record arrangement they weren't party to. Is that just one of the "understood" conditions between networks that share video?
I realize beltway journalists have moved more and more towards giving their sources the benefit of the doubt to curry favor (a la Russert's presumptive off-the-record treatment of politicians), and I know that on the record/off the record decisions are usually left to the reporter's discretion. But was Moran really violating any agreement, explicit or otherwise, that he or his network had entered into? Or is this much ado about nothing?
#2 Posted by Question, CJR on Tue 15 Sep 2009 at 04:50 PM
I'd like to know the answer to Question's question as well. What would be the value of an off-the-record agreement if the rest of the pool isn't held to the agreement? That would put the pooler at a disadvantage, wouldn't it, promising off-the-record but sharing the off-the-record feed with people who aren't bound to the agreement? How does that work? Poolers must put everything in their pool report that they themselves intend to write about. But what about off-the-record audio or video?
I'm not as pessimistic about off-the-record agreements negotiated between a journo and interviewee as many seem to be. The issue with Russert is that his off-the-record was by default, when it should have been individually negotiated beforehand, for a good and valid reason. Russert was in cahoots with his sources, more loyal to his sources than to his audience. That's what was wrong with the way he did it.
That's what the whole corruption of big-money journalism is all about, really. Big-money journos being loyal to their sources and the people who they are supposed to be reporting about, and not to their readers and audience. Russert was poster-boy for that corruption.
#3 Posted by Tom, CJR on Tue 15 Sep 2009 at 08:11 PM
@ Question and Tom,
This was a question that came up in our newsroom discussion too. The reporting on this story so far seems not quite clear on the circumstances, and never having been part of the DC TV press corps, I can't say what standard practice is. Marc Ambinder, in his own Twitter feed, offers this thought: "If Terry didn't know it was OTR, then he's not bound by the term. The issue here (I think) is whether it was ok to tweet off the CNBC feed."
In another tweet, Ambinder addressed the policy question, saying he "hope[s] ABC and other news orgs don't tighten Twitter rules after Moran's errant tweet. The instinct of big corps is to overreact."
ABC isn't the first news organization to deal with this issue. For a discussion of ESPN's attempt to set Twitter policy for employees, see this Mediaite piece. According to ESPN spokesman Paul Melvin, "we want to uphold the same editorial standards for reporting something, regardless of the medium. That is to say, that if ESPN decides not to publish news about a sports topic, that it should approach that in the same way across media."
#4 Posted by greg marx, CJR on Wed 16 Sep 2009 at 12:16 AM
I had missed this update last week. Thanks for following up and for the additional information, Greg. Seems like the issue died a natural death, as it should.
#5 Posted by Tom, CJR on Sun 20 Sep 2009 at 12:22 PM