“Accuracy” is not a fixed state…
There wasn’t any way this was going to be minimized, Brit; but it was important that it be accurate. I do think what I’ve experienced over the years here in Washington is as the media outlets have proliferated, speed has become sort of a driving force, lots of time at the expense of accuracy. And I wanted to make sure we got it as accurate as possible, and I think Katherine was an excellent choice. I don’t know who you could get better as the basic source for the story than the witness who saw the whole thing. –Dick Cheney speaking to Brit Hume
My respect for Dick Cheney as a fellow hunter has been renewed. He did the stand-up thing–three days late, but he did it.
It’s time to move on to more interesting issues, e.g. the concept of accuracy in journalism.
I was pretty sure that Brit Hume would throw Cheney a series of softballs. In fact, I was wrong. It was worse than that. He quite often led Cheney–what we call “putting words in his mouth.” Hume used to be a journalist. Yesterday he was a sycophant. But then that was the reason Cheney chose him to do the interview. That’s SOP for Cheney because he performs very well in these circumstances.
I wondered how he would spin the time lag, and I was frankly awed by his choice: Hit the press where it lives by asserting one of its most important practices–a practice that crosses the boundary between craft and ethic.
What’s interesting about this tactic is that it attacks an epistemological weakness in our culture. “Accuracy” is not a fixed state, rather it changes over time as we learn new facts. When we arrive at something like a fixed state of “accuracy” we call it history. I’ll bet Cheney’s fixed state of “accuracy” sounded like common sense to a lot of people.
The counter to Cheney’s use of “accuracy” is rather easy. There is an accurate account of each moment along the trajectory of this story. We understand that our understanding of it will change as the press discovers the facts–over time. It is the job of the press to gather facts, verify them, and release them in a timely manner. It is also the job of the press to correct errors in a timely manner–although the profession isn’t quite as good at this important task. So, I can’t blame Cheney for making an excellent choice in how to play this situation.
But that excellent choice would have been unnecessary had he simply played it straight-up from the beginning. He’s worse off for his (political) choice to remain silent for so long. [Note the update below. I may be wrong about "worse off."]
Here’s another interesting moment:
Well, I still do. I still think that the accuracy was enormously important. I had no press person with me, I didn’t have any press people with me. I was there on a private weekend with friends on a private ranch. In terms of who I would contact to have somebody who would understand what we’re even talking about, the first person that we talked with at one point, when Katherine first called the desk to get hold of a reporter didn’t know the difference between a bullet and a shotgun — a rifle bullet and a shotgun.
This is an interesting assertion that any sportsman can easily counter–especially in Texas. They are called outdoor writers, and nearly every medium to large daily newspaper in Texas employs one. Many of them are journalists trained just like any other journalist to cover the news. They understand hunting. It would have been a simple matter to call one of them and break the news.
UPDATE (1:20 p.m.): Jay Rosen says: “Cheney’s methods after the hunting accident were classics in rollback thinking.” And: “Dick Cheney did not make a mistake. He followed procedure— his procedure.” And: “The people yelling questions at Scott McClellan in the briefing room, like the reporters in the Washington bureaus who cover the president, are in Cheney’s calculations neither a necessary evil, nor a public good. They are an unnecessary evil and a public bad–ex-influentials who can be disrespected without penalty.”
UPDATE (17 February 12:42 p.m.): A reader complained about my saying: “My respect for Dick Cheney as a fellow hunter has been renewed.” And he made an excellent point, re: the VP has been known to engage in canned hunts for pen-raised birds. I was aware of this. I was conflicted when I wrote the line. The verb “renew” suggests that I had a certain amount of respect for Cheney as a hunter in the first place. That’s really not true because I never thought of him in the role of hunter before this accident. So “renew” was a poor choice of words. What I should have conveyed was this: I respect Cheney for clearly taking responsibility as an ethical hunter ought to do. My thanks to the reader (Mike). I appreciate the respect paid to me by those who care enough to write.
