My Opera"Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials"....
Friday, December 1, 2006 6:00:47 PM
... and the curse of Washington political Wizardry and insiderism.
Rule 1: you do not talk about the Washington Press- club.
Rule 2: you do not talk about the Washington Press- club.
This is indeed: an official transcript from the White House. Yes - it's the one in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue I'm talking about.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061129-3.html
(...)
Now, observe:
*sigh*
Even though the meeting in question - the announced and later cancelled meeting with semi- Prime minister Maliki of Iraq - is such an interesting happening in itself, it is not quite as interesting as the Whitehouse's own admittance of how they are now unable to go on record speaking on any issue outside "the weather? It may be nice, yes, or not, as it happens".
Indeed, this all takes me back about a year, when a lone columnist by the name of Dan Froomkin dared to voice some righteous indignation over the sheer ridiculousness the Washington Press- corps willingly engaged in, by allowing official records and statements to be quoted as "insider sources", "hill staffers", or "senior officials". Something which subsequently resulted in a kerfuffle of dimensions when the mentioned columnist's column - that goes by the name of "White House Briefing" - was suddenly considered subversive and counter- productive to the aforementioned White House Press- corps. Because it trashed this practice as the disingenuous self- serving horror it was (and still is), and the doom it spells for journalism in the US in general.
To describe the absurdity of that situation, then fresh and green Ombudsman of the WP, Debora Howell, wrote that she and the entire WP desk believed the blog was "highly opinionated and liberal". Which, in Executive Editor Downie's opinion actually was a problem because:
The complaint, to further add to the ridiculousness, was apparently filed by an individual that happened to be someone running the GOP campaign in the 2000 elections. Although he was still referenced as "well- connected reader". (And that's official).
This single reader, then, curiously, had an ally in the WP for their views to the point where the WP ombudsman writes:
In other words - so sensitive was the Washington Post to the needs of the White House and the Dear Leader and His following, that they could not bring themselves to even have a possible misunderstanding existing as to whether the reporters wouldn't play nice with the White House in their reporting - or even have their reporting tainted by this "liberal blogger" afterwards. God forbid that they should do their goddamned job, eh, and be held to account for not doing it? Or, in Froomkin's admirably modest parlance: having their efforts at asking questions scrutinized and questioned.
The latest horror from the White House is not unexpected, as much as it is idiotic - it has long been a well- established practice by any Washington press to work with the White House, and that they basically write the stories the White House wants in order to get stories to sell. A symbiotic relationship. Every office in any country does this to some extent. It's no secret this is going on, and this is indeed the expectation when "insiders" are getting stories from Washington: that the source is most likely an approved leak. Which this Whitehouse has excelled in abusing, of course - serving trite insider gossip completily identical to the official line - to lend the official line credence as Establishment Wisdom(tm). Predictably, the Washington Press- corps plays along with this, and dutifully writes down exactly what the Press- office wants. As some examples show - Washington Staff even produce baseline stories for journalists to copy down. Where the information - that story - is then considered an "exclusive". Obviously, anyone getting these "exclusives" are then beholden to the White House. No magic is going on here.
In other instances, like with NYTimes' Miller and her "Hill Staffer" source, it played a central role in advancing the White House's case for the war in Iraq - by always hinting at the existence of secret proof that the Dear Leader unfortunately couldn't be asked to share with the masses, for fear of apparently tainting the truth with actual information. But only this particularly intrepid journalist could be provided with the "exclusive" information - that happened to have been cherrypicked out of context from what we now know was the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate - that later was indeed declassified in it's entirety. But that's another story.
Why, would one ask, is the White House now making these practices more overt? They know, of course, that the journalists generally will fall on their sharpened pencils to conceal the fact that they mostly are parroting exactly what the Whitehouse wants. They know the appearance of importance in their reporting is what pays their bills. And truly, if the White House simply packed their bags and stopped having these briefings - like almost happened when the renovation of the press' briefing room took place earlier on - they know these journalists would be out of their job. Furthermore, as long as anything they say can be painted with distrust and bias if being too inquisitive and displeased with the actual questions answered - as we have seen even to the point where a web- column in the online- edition of a paper is a problem when questioning how useful, or in fact counter- productive to any journalistic mission their job is - this also goes to the favour of the White House, since they can simply claim plausible denial of what was implied through rapid corrections.
Similarly, any externally inserted "rumour" can be dismissed as needed, and the current "official" explanation subsequent to any leak will be the prevailing one in all of the Washington- covering Press. Their jobs simply depend on it.
And through this practice, anything that comes out on paper in Washington may be branded as speculation and sensationalism if too subversive to the President's image - while all sanctioned narratives are always parroted back to the readers as fair and honest reporting.
But who is to blaim for any of this? I wonder. Perhaps the ones buying this crap, and who are willingly played for fools by anyone wielding an iota of authority? The goddamned american population who wants safe and sanitized information that doesn't offend their bloody sensibilities? With such an obsession over this to the point where a bunch of charlatans can actually shape to a large extent what is covered on the Desk of any paper, and any TV- channel every day?
Because - any deviation from this is considered subversive.
I give you - the land of the free and their superior morals and values. Here for sale - bidding starts at two bloody cents.
Rule 1: you do not talk about the Washington Press- club.
Rule 2: you do not talk about the Washington Press- club.
This is indeed: an official transcript from the White House. Yes - it's the one in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue I'm talking about.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061129-3.html
MR. SNOW: We will start on the record with a brief comment on the President's NATO experience on the trip.
This has been a very good trip with productive meetings with the leaders of Estonia and Latvia. In addition, the President came back encouraged last night from his working dinner with fellow NATO heads of state.
MR. SNOW: We'll do a little of that, and then we'll go on background.
Q Can we get a on-the-record comment on the Hadley memo, or do you think that the memo shows --
MR. SNOW: No, because, again, you're asking us to do a direct conversation on a classified memo.
Q But just on the reported assessment.
MR. SNOW: What we'll say on the record is, the President has confidence in Prime Minister Maliki.
(...)
MR. BARTLETT: And I would just add, as we set up this meeting -- I think Steve had touched on this in some of the other briefings he's done -- is to recall the last time the President and Prime Minister Maliki somewhat saw each other in person through the video conference session they had.
Now, observe:
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: With that, we'll go to questions. And we'll play around with this. If we can keep stuff on the record to the best of the ability, we will, but there are going to be some areas where we can't.
*sigh*
Even though the meeting in question - the announced and later cancelled meeting with semi- Prime minister Maliki of Iraq - is such an interesting happening in itself, it is not quite as interesting as the Whitehouse's own admittance of how they are now unable to go on record speaking on any issue outside "the weather? It may be nice, yes, or not, as it happens".
Indeed, this all takes me back about a year, when a lone columnist by the name of Dan Froomkin dared to voice some righteous indignation over the sheer ridiculousness the Washington Press- corps willingly engaged in, by allowing official records and statements to be quoted as "insider sources", "hill staffers", or "senior officials". Something which subsequently resulted in a kerfuffle of dimensions when the mentioned columnist's column - that goes by the name of "White House Briefing" - was suddenly considered subversive and counter- productive to the aforementioned White House Press- corps. Because it trashed this practice as the disingenuous self- serving horror it was (and still is), and the doom it spells for journalism in the US in general.
To describe the absurdity of that situation, then fresh and green Ombudsman of the WP, Debora Howell, wrote that she and the entire WP desk believed the blog was "highly opinionated and liberal". Which, in Executive Editor Downie's opinion actually was a problem because:
"We want to make sure people in the [Bush-] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin's column because it contains opinion,
The complaint, to further add to the ridiculousness, was apparently filed by an individual that happened to be someone running the GOP campaign in the 2000 elections. Although he was still referenced as "well- connected reader". (And that's official).
This single reader, then, curiously, had an ally in the WP for their views to the point where the WP ombudsman writes:
But I agree with The Post's political writers here; the Web site should remove the "White House Briefing" label from Froomkin's column.
In other words - so sensitive was the Washington Post to the needs of the White House and the Dear Leader and His following, that they could not bring themselves to even have a possible misunderstanding existing as to whether the reporters wouldn't play nice with the White House in their reporting - or even have their reporting tainted by this "liberal blogger" afterwards. God forbid that they should do their goddamned job, eh, and be held to account for not doing it? Or, in Froomkin's admirably modest parlance: having their efforts at asking questions scrutinized and questioned.
The latest horror from the White House is not unexpected, as much as it is idiotic - it has long been a well- established practice by any Washington press to work with the White House, and that they basically write the stories the White House wants in order to get stories to sell. A symbiotic relationship. Every office in any country does this to some extent. It's no secret this is going on, and this is indeed the expectation when "insiders" are getting stories from Washington: that the source is most likely an approved leak. Which this Whitehouse has excelled in abusing, of course - serving trite insider gossip completily identical to the official line - to lend the official line credence as Establishment Wisdom(tm). Predictably, the Washington Press- corps plays along with this, and dutifully writes down exactly what the Press- office wants. As some examples show - Washington Staff even produce baseline stories for journalists to copy down. Where the information - that story - is then considered an "exclusive". Obviously, anyone getting these "exclusives" are then beholden to the White House. No magic is going on here.
In other instances, like with NYTimes' Miller and her "Hill Staffer" source, it played a central role in advancing the White House's case for the war in Iraq - by always hinting at the existence of secret proof that the Dear Leader unfortunately couldn't be asked to share with the masses, for fear of apparently tainting the truth with actual information. But only this particularly intrepid journalist could be provided with the "exclusive" information - that happened to have been cherrypicked out of context from what we now know was the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate - that later was indeed declassified in it's entirety. But that's another story.
Why, would one ask, is the White House now making these practices more overt? They know, of course, that the journalists generally will fall on their sharpened pencils to conceal the fact that they mostly are parroting exactly what the Whitehouse wants. They know the appearance of importance in their reporting is what pays their bills. And truly, if the White House simply packed their bags and stopped having these briefings - like almost happened when the renovation of the press' briefing room took place earlier on - they know these journalists would be out of their job. Furthermore, as long as anything they say can be painted with distrust and bias if being too inquisitive and displeased with the actual questions answered - as we have seen even to the point where a web- column in the online- edition of a paper is a problem when questioning how useful, or in fact counter- productive to any journalistic mission their job is - this also goes to the favour of the White House, since they can simply claim plausible denial of what was implied through rapid corrections.
Similarly, any externally inserted "rumour" can be dismissed as needed, and the current "official" explanation subsequent to any leak will be the prevailing one in all of the Washington- covering Press. Their jobs simply depend on it.
And through this practice, anything that comes out on paper in Washington may be branded as speculation and sensationalism if too subversive to the President's image - while all sanctioned narratives are always parroted back to the readers as fair and honest reporting.
But who is to blaim for any of this? I wonder. Perhaps the ones buying this crap, and who are willingly played for fools by anyone wielding an iota of authority? The goddamned american population who wants safe and sanitized information that doesn't offend their bloody sensibilities? With such an obsession over this to the point where a bunch of charlatans can actually shape to a large extent what is covered on the Desk of any paper, and any TV- channel every day?
Because - any deviation from this is considered subversive.
I give you - the land of the free and their superior morals and values. Here for sale - bidding starts at two bloody cents.
