All Blog Posts from Public Eye

As an unabashed devotee of America’s editorial pages, it’s been interesting to watch them (almost universally) avoid harsh rebukes of the war in Iraq.

Until recently.

What began with a drip with the Los Angeles Times two months ago is developing into a trickle. And while the New York Times editorial from this past weekend may or may not wind up being a seminal moment in the domestic debate over Iraq, the more noteworthy objections come from some smaller outlets, like last week’s Olympian editorial (from Olympia, Washington) and this past Sunday’s Tuscaloosa News.

The Tuscaloosa editorial (for those of you keeping score at home, Tuscaloosa County went to Bush 61 percent in 2004, up from his tally in 2000) was a strong condemnation of Bush’s Iraq policies, titled “Bush Stands Alone in his Failed Iraqi Democracy Plans.” In turns formal and folksy, the piece focused on the Republicans who have abandoned Bush’s push of the war:

But the president, far from shaken by these defections, continues to pursue his policies. Increasingly, he resembles the marching band member who insisted that only he was in step; all of his colleagues were wrong.

Recent reporting in The Washington Post shows why Bush chooses to press an indefensible policy. He sees himself as an instrument of God, chosen to bring about a specific set of changes in Iraq. If others — including some of his closest supporters — now think it’s impossible to bring about those changes, it’s because they lack Bush’s divine vision.

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I’ve always known I have an old soul. Watching old Chaplin flicks, hanging on to those vinyl records, calling cars ‘tin lizzies.’ (Okay, maybe not that last one.) But this week’s PR Week piece suggesting that editorials were going the way of the dinosaur had me grumbling like Grampa Simpson.

The piece opens like this:

Simply put, talk is cheap these days. The advent of cable news lowered the bar of entry into the public discussion; the Internet has almost totally obliterated it.

It then adds some grudging “well, maybe editorials still matter” testimonials before ending with this dirge-like kicker:

As the masses realize they can participate in the public discourse without a third party, newspaper editorials may slowly become - like copyboys and typewriters - a quaint tradition.

No doubt. Talk is cheap nowadays. And the public can participate in the public discourse. But far from being a techno-utopia, today’s spicy media jambalaya of blogs, cable news debates and talk radio shows doesn’t always lend itself to reasoned, step-by-step political and cultural discussion. And that’s part of their appeal.

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“Post-election job number one” for the Bush administration is to rid itself of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a New York Times editorial argued today. And, in a serendipitous turn of events, it appears that the President has pretty much done exactly that. He just completed a moments ago announcing Rumsfeld’s replacement, former CIA Director Robert Gates.

I guess the Democrats aren’t the only ones who got what they wanted today.

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Hooray for transparency! That’s what the Los Angeles Times is screaming today in celebration of the relocation of its opinion page to the first section of the paper. So today’s opinion page is one big explainer-o-rama. Wondered about those people who write the paper’s editorials? You can check out the bios of the editorial board’s nine writers and three editors here. And how do they choose what to write about? “We go wherever our interests lead us - skid row, Sacramento, Shanghai - but we're not entirely free to write whatever we want. The editorial board imposes a few institutional constraints, by design,” writes the Times. Those constraints include the paper’s past positions on any given topic, and the writing is “a team effort…A member of the board (editors included) can't write an editorial endorsing a position in the absence of consensus among the group.” Of course, “Editor Andres Martinez and Deputy Editor Michael Newman have a bigger say, especially in wielding a veto, and both report directly to the publisher, who has an even bigger say.”

Want some more explaining? Editors of the Op-ed page and Letters to the Editor offer some insight into the machinations behind their respective charges. And in case you wondered what Joel Stein is thinking (aren’t we all?) check out the philosophy behind his column—and those of the other Op-ed writers for the Times here.

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We love a good look inside an editorial meeting here at Public Eye. And we’re not the only ones. The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash. has been blogging about its editorial meetings for some time now. NPR’s new blog, Mixed Signals, has been doing the same. Yesterday, The Spokesman Review took it one step further – they now offer a live Webcast of the day’s two editorial meetings. Staffer Ken Paulman’s comment on the inaugural broadcast gave us a chuckle:

Today was the first day that the public could access the web stream of our news meetings, and an earlier assessment by the Inlander turned out to be almost correct. The weekly identified "the eight people outside the Review's 'transparent newsroom' who actually care...," and lo and behold, we clocked exactly eight connections to our webcast this morning! Only problem is, seven of those connections were from inside the newsroom. The eighth connection was actually two people - one who watched the first half (and, evidently got bored and left), and another who watched the latter half.

Ah, well. We'll be tuning in to make it nine viewers.

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Sunday’s Washington Post provided fuel for one controversy that kept critics pretty busy on Monday. E&P’s Greg Mitchell, for one, was none too pleased with an editorial that referred to Scooter Libby’s 2003 disclosure to reporters as "The Good Leak," which appeared in the same edition as a news article that “thoroughly debunked the notion.” Mitchell writes:

The editorial page, a co-producer and then staunch defender of the war in Iraq, declared in a headline on Sunday that the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) info “Scooter” Libby gave to reporters in 2003 was in reality “A Good Leak.” The White House was not out to punish Ambassador Joe Wilson for raising doubts about pre-war intelligence; in fact, Wilson is the bad guy in this story for making false claims. Bush, in a sense, is the hero, for instantly declassifying the key NIE document--he was only out to inform the public. Now the poor guy, the Post complains, is the target of “hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy” from the Democrats.

The Post editorial concludes, “It’s unfortunate that those who seek to prove” that grounds for the war were bogus “now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision.”

As often the case in Post editorials related to Iraq, reporting in the newspaper proves that much of the above is pure hogwash. This reality checking usually doesn’t happen the very same day, however.

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Since we’re always interested in how things work in the media business (and assume you are too) today’s Washington Post live chat with the paper’s editorial page editor Fred Hiatt is definitely worth a look. Answering a host of questions about how decisions are made about what goes on the editorial pages of the Post and how such work is vetted, Hiatt offered a great inside look at how the paper is run.

Some notable questions that Hiatt addresses:

What is the process you go through to determine what will be included in the paper's editorials each day? Who does the editorial page speak for, the publisher, the editor only, the staff of the paper, someone else? Are all editorials specifically approved by the publisher?

Last December, it was reported in the press that some Washington think-tank types had been paid by lobbying or other special interest groups to write op-ed pieces that promoted the groups' policy positions. Does the Washington Post have a formal policy that restricts, or requires the disclosure of, this sort of supplementary income for its op-ed contributors? If so, is this policy uniform for regular columnists and guest columnists?

How many people are involved in the really big editorial decisions, like, say, which presidential candidate to endorse? Is it still just the members of the editorial board, or are there more voices involved?

When you print letters to the editors about a controversial story, how do you determine how many pro versus con letters you publish? Can a reader determine an approximate percentage of pro/con letters received at The Post by the number of such letters published?

You wrote that you are ultimately responsible for the facts presented on the editorial and op-ed pages. How long before press-time do you get the op-eds? How big a staff do you have to fact check op-eds before they go out? Printing corrections is a different from stopping factual errors before they are printed, as you know.

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When PE launched just four short months ago, one of the very first items we presented was a video look inside one of the major CBS News editorial meetings – the 10:30. The news division has gone through some changes since then, and we’ve gained some readers, so we thought it would be a good time to revisit it.



This is the morning meeting where CBS News executives and producers gather to discuss the news agenda, what they’re working on for today, tomorrow and into the future. While other meetings and discussions have already happened (and more will continue through the day), this is where the process begins to firm up – and where various interests are heard by all. Today’s 10:30, usually headed by CBS News President Sean McManus, was conducted by Linda Mason, senior vice president for standards and special projects, and Rome Hartman, who recently took over as executive producer of the CBS “Evening News,” makes his PE video debut.



While this is the second time we’ve taken a camera into an editorial meeting, it’s important to remember how rare it is for any news organization to make public its internal discussions. And while PE policy is to edit such video for competitive or proprietary reasons, this meeting runs almost in full. The only part that didn’t make it was the very beginning of the meeting, where the assembled had a good time making fun of my name. For the record, it’s Vaughn, not Verne. And the only reason that is not included is that the camera picked up the exchange in midstream and most of it was inaudible. I promise. The rest of the meeting is unedited and runs just over 17 minutes.



So take a peek inside CBS News for a glimpse at how the sausage is made.

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As the newspaper industry’s dismal financial outlook results in more downsizing at papers across the country, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists has christened today as “Black Ink Monday,” a “nonviolent protest” in the form of a collection of 100 cartoons at EditorialCartoonists.com. The protest is a response to “the Tribune Company's recent elimination of editorial cartooning positions at several of its newspapers, as well as a commentary on newspapers everywhere who have lost sight of the value of having a staff editorial cartoonist” (hat tip to News Dissector and E&P).

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Because you asked, we're once again bringing you the video of yesterday's morning editorial meeting. For those of you unfamiliar with navigating the labyrinth of the blog (read: those of you who have actually e-mailed us asking how to find yesterday's post). Take a look here Or click on the video to watch.

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