The Press and John McCain
Jim Rutenberg’s article in The New York Times today should be an embarrassment to, and a wake-up call for, the entire news media. Any journalist who becomes friends, or even friendly, with a politician he or she is covering is 1) foolish and 2) unethical.
The primary purpose of journalism is to give people the information they need to be free and self-governing. There’s still a lot of debate about what kind of information that is. But what is not debatable is the simple idea that journalists cannot effectively cover politics as chummy pals of people with real power.
I do not think the press needs to go picking fights. I do not think effective journalism requires an adversarial stance. It requires that political reporters operate as custodians of fact with a discipline of verification, i.e. act like any other reporter covering any other news situation.
This is just horrifying:
When Republicans gathered at Madison Square Garden to celebrate President Bush’s second nomination four years ago, Senator John McCain gathered at a restaurant uptown with some of the biggest stars in journalism to celebrate his birthday. Among those mingling over cocktails and fine French food with Mr. McCain and his wife, Cindy, were Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, Tim Russert — “our people,” as an old campaign hand reminisced on Wednesday.
Our people.
Journalists that allow themselves to become “our people” to powerful politicians have stopped fulfilling the primary purpose of journalism. They become unethical fools.
John McCain isn’t doing anything wrong. Any politician with a lick of sense will try to manipulate the news media. Message control is power. Always has been. Always will be. The problem for voters occurs when the press gladly allows itself to be manipulated.
Finally, if journalists are telling the proper story, their focus would be on citizens’ experiences with governance more than on the celebrity of politics.
(A personal aside: During my first year working in journalism right out of college, a fellow reporter and I became friendly with a local judge. He was a nice fellow. Not much older than us. And we hung out with the guy. When our editor found out, well, he went ape-shit. He absolutely scared the living crap outta me. We were damned lucky to keep our jobs. Lesson learned. I should have known better. But power, and simple friendliness, can be seductive.)
[Editor's note: See comments re: edit in the lead.]
Tags: journalism, rhetoric, politics
Great post, Andy.
The way I see it you can be friendly to anyone you have to cover even to the point of knowing their family and about them because you don’t have to throw away simple human decency just because you’re reporting on them. (For example, if an elected officials’ mother dies, there’s nothing wrong with expressing sympathy for their loss.)
Still, when you start hanging out with them or attending meetings of their political activist group or even start to let your columns focus on the issues of those with whom you are spending time it really calls your credibility into question…and you might not even realize you’re doing it.
Jason… simple human decency is always in order.
Reporters are reporting on their subjects.
Certainly, they must spend time with those subjects or they will not be able to file a report.
I agree reporters (read: journalists) run the risk of getting too close to their subjects by spending time with them, however, the only way to report on people, groups and events is to be there.
Personally, I try to cover both sides to the best of my ability, however, when covering a specific meeting, one can, at times, simply report what happens at the meeting without introducing differing, outside views. I think I’ve done a little of both, myself.
The beauty of a free press is that it IS free and much of what is reported is a selection made by the individual reporter according to what that reporter has judged would be of the most interest to the public.
Jackie… I’m not talking about “being there.” I’m talking about doing the kinds of things that get politicians thinking of individual journalists as “our people.”
I wasn’t really addressing you, per se, Andy.
Jason mentioned attending meetings of groups in his response.
I attend meetings of groups quite often to stay abreast of issues that may or may not arise out of those groups’ meetings. While not always reporting on a particular meeting every time I go to one, sometimes something comes up in the course of a meeting that I do report on, or it might have bearing on something that comes up in the future and I might return to my notes for reference.
Also, is it considered “hanging out” with an interviewee if you invite them to your home for the interview? If you occasionally take someone to dinner, does that cross a line?
If you are invited for coffee by a member of a group after a Council meeting, should you turn it down even though you consider the person a valuable source of information and a future contact?
Where do you draw the invisible line between being “friends” and being “friendly?”
To me, what is more important is one’s personal ability to separate their private life with their public duty.
As far as what you, yourself, wrote: “I’m talking about doing the kinds of things that get politicians thinking of individual journalists as “our people.”"
I don’t know that I can even follow your line of thinking, there, and I’ll explain why. You see, if I have one cup of coffee one day with a source or subject of my writings, the source or subject might decide we’re now “good friends,” he or she might get the impression that I will do him or her a favor later. I have no control over what that other person thinks about me or says about me to others. That “impression,” you speak of is a very loose and subjective term and an “impression” doesn’t make it a reality. In my opinion, the true test should be the journalist’s compiled work, not what associated subjects think or say about their connections to them.
Jackie… If you read the article in the NYT, I think it’s quite clear that what the named journalists were doing is waaaay over the line. Much of what you’re describing is normal in the course of a reporter doing work. Having coffee or lunch and talking business is normal behavior.
I did read it, Andy.
You have a right to your opinion. I still think it’s better to judge a journalist by his or her collective work than by what others say about the journalist.
Did those journalists involved in the NYT story give you reason to believe, in their collective work that they had a bias or went easy on those who called them “our people?” If they did then that’s a different story.
I don’t mean to argue with you. I think we just have a difference of opinion on this. I think each individual knows their own limits. I know when I am chancing getting too close to a subject or source and I usually back off of my own volition if I think I might be getting close to a conflict.
It’s just too subjective, in my opinion, to make the judgement FOR other people.
Anyway, nice discussion.
“Senator John McCain gathered at a restaurant uptown with some of the biggest stars in journalism to celebrate his birthday.”
It’s what they DID. What was said followed from the actions of these journalists.
I think the way to understand this is to run a thought experiment - if something happened that, if publicized, would hurt your public-figure friend, would you be able to write about it without feeling the urge to protect him?
If you’re human, probably not. So stay away.
Anna… That’s a good experiment.
Question: Do you think that some people, let’s just say in general, might have a greater ability than other people to separate their social/private life from their professional life and duties?
I can certainly see an argument being made here that a professional journalist should not give others any reason to question his or her credibility, however, don’t you think that is going to happen regardless of the efforts made by any given journalist to maintain that “impression” of credibility in the public eye?
Perhaps I should have written, “…”impression” of UNBIASED credibility in the public eye?”
I think, Andy, you have admitted, yourself, that everyone has a bias, to some degree, even journalists.
The important thing is being able to report without that bias, even though you have it, in my opinion, not whether one has attended a birthday bash and not based on the impression OTHER people voice regarding that attendance.
That’s just my lesser-educated-than-you opinion, but it is a fastly held one.