Voices
bites for review… Now, with a
millisecond Twitter news cycle
and an unforgiving, gaffe-obsessed media culture, politicians
and their advisers are routinely
demanding that reporters allow
them final editing power over any
published quotations.
To be sure, we all want to be quoted accurately, but that is very different from allowing sources to delete
substantive remarks. We should be
concerned about that practice in a
democracy, and we should expect reporters to resist that kind of control.
Censorship and news control are
exactly that, whether the media is
complicit or not, and such a cozy relationship between media and public
officials or political campaigns is not
in the interest of a free press or an
open society.
Nor is quoting anonymous “senior government officials” or “senior campaign officials,” which is
another ethical issue Lewis’ Vanity
Fair article raises. Was it necessary
for him to hide the identity of those
commenting on the president’s behavior in a March 15, 2011 meeting
on Libya with such descriptions
as “one of the participants at the
meeting,” “says one participant,”
and “recalls one eyewitness”? After all, what Lewis is describing is
DANIEL R.
SCHWARZ
HUFFINGTON
09.30.12
not top security information or the
president’s particular views, but
human responses to the president’s
behavior. Lewis has already identified the “principals” attending the
meeting. Surely, who is saying what
among senior advisers and their top
assistants about how Obama functions at a meeting on a major issue
would be interesting.
In citing unidentified sources and
letting the White
House edit his quotations, the Lewis
Anonymous
article reminds us
sourcing opens
that anonymous
the gates for
sources often prothe reporter
vide information
and editor to
because of self-infind someone
terest. Anonymous
who agrees
sourcing opens the
with their
gates for the reown opinions.”
porter and editor
to find someone
who agrees with their own opinions.
Often reporters and officials use one
another in a complicit relationship
where truth takes a backseat to convenience- officials get their views
out, reporters get a scoop. This
practice has a long history, dating
back to a time when major news
columnists, most newspapers, TV
networks and the administration
had a less adversarial relationship.