All Blog Posts from Public Eye

This post has been updated. --MTF

Criticisms of the White House press corps come fast and furious in MediaLand and Blogistan. (From accusations like they’re ‘an extension of the Clinton spin machine’ to its ‘meekness’ in covering the Bush presidency.) But very rarely do they come from the White House press corps itself.

Until this week.

ABC’s White House correspondent Martha Raddatz was the subject of a Washington Post profile by Howard Kurtz on Monday, where he detailed her ventures to Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A few paragraphs in, Raddatz tossed a bit of grenade at her friends and colleagues in the White House press corps – or, at the very least, the position of White House correspondent – when she said:

"I'd probably go crazy if I had to stay every second at the White House and not go out and be a reporter," she says by phone from Pakistan. "I don't want to be a stenographer.”

From this writer’s vantage point, Raddatz seemed to be implying that covering the White House was not quite the same as what she thought it mean to “be a reporter.”

Needless to say, this wasn’t taken well by some of those she sits with in the White House briefing room.

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A few weeks back, Public Eye sat down with CBS White House correspondent Jim Axelrod in the wake of his testy back-and-forth with White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. Snow had implied that Axelrod was a “defeatist” during a press briefing.

I thought it was tough enough on a journalist to defend oneself from an accusation from the White House’s spokesman. But you know what’s tougher? Getting singled out in print.

Late yesterday afternoon, the White House put out an entire press release calling out one reporter’s coverage of the White House stance on border patrol. The press release, one of their “SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT” series (all caps was their idea), began with the following passage:

The Washington Times inaccurately claims National Guard troops assigned to the U.S.-Mexico Border under Operation Jump Start are "being pulled off the line a year earlier than promised." (Jerry Seper, "Guard Troops Pulled Back From Border," The Washington Times, 8/9/07)

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Did you see that 10 big-shot conservative talk radio hosts visited the White House the other day? Yep. According to the New York Daily News:

For the second year in a row, President Bush called some of his closest radio friends to the White House for an off-the-record briefing and discussion.

Mark Levin and Sean Hannity of WABC (770 AM) were among the 10 conservative talk-radio hosts who met with Bush in the West Wing yesterday, according to Talkers magazine.

The others were Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Hugh Hewitt, Scott Hennen, Bill Bennett, Michael Medved, Lars Larsen and Janet Parshall.

Bush met with five hosts last fall, including Boortz, Hannity and Medved, Talkers noted, "to discuss issues and gauge the conservative talk-radio audience's feelings about issues and policies."

And bloggers immediately knee-jerked with negative feedback. Blatherwatch said:

They went in to get a fluffing and pick up some talking points straight from the fluffer-in-chief.

The catch was that despite they could ask their best questions, but there were no recordings or even direct quotes allowed, which is the administration's favorite interview model.

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"The relationship between the President and the press is a unique relationship, and it's a necessary relationship. I enjoy it. I hope you do. As I say, sometimes you don't like the decisions I make, and sometimes I don't like the way you write about the decisions. But nevertheless, it's a really important part of our process."

-- President Bush, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new briefing room this morning, befriending the filter.

It's Thursday, and that means it's time for the Public Eye Chat. This week's subject is CBS News White House Correspondent Jim Axelrod.

Matthew Felling: It seems like the ‘gaggle’ exists in an old school media vacuum, as opposed to the afternoon briefing, with all the cameras present. Are there completely different moods? Are there different tones of voice used in the morning as opposed to the afternoon?

Jim Axelrod: Well, [Clinton Press Secretary] Mike McCurry famously said that the biggest mistake he made was allowing the briefings to be televised. They used to be just to be for a minute or two and then the cameras would be off. But with the televised nature of the briefing, I don’t think now that the gaggle is “old school,” I think the briefings sometimes become show business because everybody knows it’s on television. It generates a lot of heat, but I’m not sure how much light.

The gaggle is often a much better source for actual information, primarily because there’s no camera on. You can tape record comments and trancscribe them later. And I don’t want to say that they’re informal or casual, but they’re more relaxed in the sense of ‘performance’ that sometimes accompanies the briefing which is not always to the process’ benefit. If the process is getting information to the public, than I’m not sure the briefing is always the best way to do that. The gaggle often yields more.

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As you may have heard, the New York Times has decided to stop participating in the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. (The news was buried in the 13th paragraph of Sunday's Frank Rich column.)

There has been much debate about the dinner over the years, with many outside the media establishment citing it as evidence of a too-cozy relationship between the media and the administration.

While one can certainly make the argument that the media need a more adversarial relationship with the government, I've come to question the significance of the dinner in making that case. One night of revelry, after all, does not constitute a compromised relationship. One can certainly argue that the dinner is a symptom of larger problems. But reporters need to have a civil relationship with those they cover, and for all involved to have a night out just doesn't strike me as that big of a deal.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of the dinner – I certainly wouldn't want to have to suffer through the hobnobbing and awkward speeches that mark the event. It's just that it strikes me as far less significant in the grand scheme of things than some people seem to think.

Stephen Spruiell calls the Times' decision "a very dumb overreaction to a perceived coziness between Washington reporters and their sources." He continues:

Are NYT reporters henceforth barred from attending any party or social function at which government officials are present, for fear that liberal bloggers might accuse them of being lapdogs again? By implying that there's something improper about such hobnobbing, the Times brass is setting its D.C. reporters up for all sorts of accusations, should they, God forbid, get caught having a drink with a friend who works for the government.

Spruiell seizes on something here: The Times decision seems to be grounded at least as much in public relations as it is in journalism. It's not, apparently, that the dinner is the problem; it's the perception of it that's the problem.

This comment by Los Angeles Times D.C. Bureau Chief Doyle McManus pretty much sums it up. Events like the dinner are "largely useless and largely harmless....There is a valid concern about coziness in Washington, but the test of coziness is in the coverage," he told Editor & Publisher. "I have seen no evidence that these rather dreadful events are affecting coverage."

I’ve got to admit I was stunned by the nature, depth and fury of the responses to my blog post yesterday about the Bill Moyers Journal report on the news media and the War in Iraq.

Read those comments and you’ll see there’s alot of anger, no, make that rage directed at some of us – maybe all of us – in the news business.

In fairness, some of you had legitimate points of view to express. Fair enough. Others just wanted to tell me I was a jerk or worse. One of you even called me something that got Don Imus fired.

Sorry you feel that way.

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Rich Little will be speaking at the White House Correspondents Dinner on April 21, and he has promised not to be too hard on President Bush, unlike last year's speaker, Stephen Colbert.

"I won't even mention the word 'Iraq,'" Little told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He also said this: "They don't want anyone knocking the president. He's really over the coals right now, and he's worried about his legacy."

Colbert-loving commentators have gotten worked up over the selection of Little, an impersonator who clearly won't be delivering anything like Colbert's searing satire from last year, a speech that delighted some but struck others as inappropriate.

Here's the thing, though: Complaining about the speaker at the White House Correspondents Dinner is sort of like complaining that your new insect overlords aren't offering much of a health care plan. That is, it's missing the point. The issue isn't who speaks at the dinner so much as the dinner itself, which has outlived any usefulness it might once have had.

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Screen Grab Flap: Ok, so why were all the still photos of President Bush giving his speech on Wednesday a bit grainy? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Window On Washington blog shares the explanation: "Routinely, a pool photographer - who shares the photo with all news organizations - and wire service photographers are allowed to cover presidential events in quarters too small to handle the usual throng of photographers." But on Wednesday night, administration officials said that the White House Library was too small. "That left newspapers [and web sites] with three choices: No photo, a photo shot by a White House photographer or a screen grab from television coverage of the speech. The latter … generally provides a less-than-flattering image." The White House Correspondents Association is peeved: “This is the latest in an ever-growing series of events in which this White House is not allowing photographers,” said WHCA President Steve Scully of C-SPAN. "Clearly it’s unacceptable.”

Second Coming?: Ah, the woes of copy editing. There was a typo on Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's Web site recently. Just a small one: it changed his name from Crist to Christ. Once identified, the typo was corrected in less than a minute. The governor's own web site wasn't the only one to make the error, however. According to the AP: "At least three Florida newspapers have referred to Crist as Christ in the past two weeks alone."

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The relationship between the press and the White House can be seen every day in the briefing room (or temporary briefing room, as the case happens to be), where the press corps meets with Press Secretary Tony Snow. Of late, the gathering has gotten more attention than usual because some think the level of contentiousness has reached a fever pitch. It's been awhile since our own visit to the briefing room, so we decided to ask White House Correspondent Jim Axelrod -- who's there every day, front row – how he approaches the job:

In terms of yielding worthwhile answers -- from Snow or anyone speaking at the podium in the briefing room -- what works and what doesn't?

The presumption in the briefing room is that Tony Snow is there to explain the administration's point of view. That makes him an advocate. Sure, he can tell you facts -- who the President met with that day, what the subject of the week's radio address might be, or where the Bush family will spend Christmas. But the bulk of his job is to explain why the President is doing what he's doing -- and answer questions from reporters who are often trying to glean more information than the White House wants to share.

I generally have one chance to ask a question or a series of questions at the briefing. I know that if I ask a question like, "so what's the President's new way forward in Iraq?" it's not going to yield much. They'll announce that when they are ready, and not a moment before. However, I can ask questions designed to peel back a layer or two of the onion. For instance, yesterday I asked if the White House is factoring in the feelings of the American people in devising a new strategy. Either answer is going to provide a little better sense of how the process of crafting a new way forward is unfolding. That's all I try to do.

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