Sunday, June 11, 2006
Journalism: the Profession that isn't
So-called professional journalists always seem to crave respect. They want to be recognized as a profession but without all the messy credentialing and governmental oversight that attend other professions (Doctor, Lawyer, CPA etc.). They also want to define who gets to be a journalist when it comes to privileges attending the profession – most notably the privilege to publish whatever they want without telling their source, no matter that such behavior by anyone else may be criminal. Ideally, they would shape the definition to include Dan Rather, Bob Woodward and David Broder without somehow including the likes of your truly.
Part and parcel to this ongoing struggle for respect is the self-congratulatory pieces we see and hear every so often as we are constantly reminded about the importance of a free press blah, blah, blah. Today’s Washington Post provides us with just such a piece as Robert Kaiser recounts once again how brave and selfless the Post is in their work Public Secrets.
“For the Founders, the issue was freedom and how best to secure it. Addressing that point in his Pentagon Papers opinion, Justice Hugo Black captured the spirit that animates my profession in just two sentences:
"The government's power to censor the press was abolished [by the First Amendment] so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people." (emphasis added)
Implicit throughout his piece is an arrogance that says someone who writes for a living should be trusted as the final arbiter of what should or should not be revealed.
“Labeling something "classified" or important to "national security" does not make it so. The government overclassifies with abandon. And the definition of "national security" is elusive. Some politicians act as though revealing any classified information threatens our nation's security, but that seems preposterous.”
Of course, he’s right – the government does over-classify. It was a source of constant eye-rolling while serving in the Navy. But we, the people, established a government that puts in place people to make classification decisions; none of whom currently write for the Washington Post. Mr. Kaiser would have us believe that the press is merely an unnamed fourth branch of government, worthy of deference when they make a decision.
He also intimates that use of confidential sources is a must and that journalists, however defined, should not be required to reveal who gave up a classified secret – unstated is the addition “esp. if it embarrasses this administration”. He goes through the litany of heroic stories, spinning them to make the Post look good while ignoring what they don’t report. I, for one, believe the fact that the #2 guy at the FBI was illegally passing secrets out of the agency in a pique because he didn’t get the top job should have been news. The Post decided otherwise SOLELY out of concern for their own best interest. Their’s was a solitary decision because you can bet that the NY Times, Washington Star or NBC News would have immediately revealed that Mark Felt was Deep Throat during the Post’s glory days of Watergate.
Coincidentally, Michael Kinsley provides in the same Outlook section a useful counterweight to Mr. Kaiser’s self-serving drivel.It is a helpful reminder that the press can screw it up…and with horrible results for those they name incorrectly. Two Bad Cases for Anonymity In it, he primarily discusses the case of Wen Ho Lee, the scientist unfairly accused of betraying the US.
“When a string of government officials denied under oath that they leaked Lee's private information to the media, Lee's lawyers subpoenaed several reporters and demanded to know their sources. To avoid an unfriendly Supreme Court ruling on this question, five major news organizations (including The Post) kicked in some $150,000 each (The Post was reported to have paid about $10,000 less because it had not exhausted all its appeals) -- or roughly half of the $1.6 million the government paid Lee to drop the lawsuit. But they did so with ill grace, saying that the Lee case was "a matter of great public interest" and that "the public could not have been informed about the issues without the information we were able to obtain only from confidential sources."
Only the information has never panned out and Mr. Lee has had his name forever associated with a treasonous act for no apparent reason.(We also see such press excesses in the remarkably inept reporting on the Duke Lacrosse case. Despite available evidence not really proving much beyond some underage drinking, some of the ‘respectable” press has had no problem in publicly identifying the players while not seeming to bring any question of the credibility of the accuser and the prosecution.)
Although the gist of his article is inspired by the recent settlement agreement with Mr. Lee, Mr. Kinsley also briefly cites the Valerie Plame case. And Michael Kinsley being Michael Kinsley, he makes sure that we remember that:
“Likewise in the Plame case: The real story was about the leaks -- a Bush White House stratagem to punish a troublemaker,….” (emphasis added)
Funny, but in his entire recollection of the Wen Ho Lee case, Mr. Kinsley can never get around to mentioning that it was the Clinton administration that went full bore after Mr.Lee – instead it’s just the “government”….until it becomes the “Bush White House”.
Part and parcel to this ongoing struggle for respect is the self-congratulatory pieces we see and hear every so often as we are constantly reminded about the importance of a free press blah, blah, blah. Today’s Washington Post provides us with just such a piece as Robert Kaiser recounts once again how brave and selfless the Post is in their work Public Secrets.
“For the Founders, the issue was freedom and how best to secure it. Addressing that point in his Pentagon Papers opinion, Justice Hugo Black captured the spirit that animates my profession in just two sentences:
"The government's power to censor the press was abolished [by the First Amendment] so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people." (emphasis added)
Implicit throughout his piece is an arrogance that says someone who writes for a living should be trusted as the final arbiter of what should or should not be revealed.
“Labeling something "classified" or important to "national security" does not make it so. The government overclassifies with abandon. And the definition of "national security" is elusive. Some politicians act as though revealing any classified information threatens our nation's security, but that seems preposterous.”
Of course, he’s right – the government does over-classify. It was a source of constant eye-rolling while serving in the Navy. But we, the people, established a government that puts in place people to make classification decisions; none of whom currently write for the Washington Post. Mr. Kaiser would have us believe that the press is merely an unnamed fourth branch of government, worthy of deference when they make a decision.
He also intimates that use of confidential sources is a must and that journalists, however defined, should not be required to reveal who gave up a classified secret – unstated is the addition “esp. if it embarrasses this administration”. He goes through the litany of heroic stories, spinning them to make the Post look good while ignoring what they don’t report. I, for one, believe the fact that the #2 guy at the FBI was illegally passing secrets out of the agency in a pique because he didn’t get the top job should have been news. The Post decided otherwise SOLELY out of concern for their own best interest. Their’s was a solitary decision because you can bet that the NY Times, Washington Star or NBC News would have immediately revealed that Mark Felt was Deep Throat during the Post’s glory days of Watergate.
Coincidentally, Michael Kinsley provides in the same Outlook section a useful counterweight to Mr. Kaiser’s self-serving drivel.It is a helpful reminder that the press can screw it up…and with horrible results for those they name incorrectly. Two Bad Cases for Anonymity In it, he primarily discusses the case of Wen Ho Lee, the scientist unfairly accused of betraying the US.
“When a string of government officials denied under oath that they leaked Lee's private information to the media, Lee's lawyers subpoenaed several reporters and demanded to know their sources. To avoid an unfriendly Supreme Court ruling on this question, five major news organizations (including The Post) kicked in some $150,000 each (The Post was reported to have paid about $10,000 less because it had not exhausted all its appeals) -- or roughly half of the $1.6 million the government paid Lee to drop the lawsuit. But they did so with ill grace, saying that the Lee case was "a matter of great public interest" and that "the public could not have been informed about the issues without the information we were able to obtain only from confidential sources."
Only the information has never panned out and Mr. Lee has had his name forever associated with a treasonous act for no apparent reason.(We also see such press excesses in the remarkably inept reporting on the Duke Lacrosse case. Despite available evidence not really proving much beyond some underage drinking, some of the ‘respectable” press has had no problem in publicly identifying the players while not seeming to bring any question of the credibility of the accuser and the prosecution.)
Although the gist of his article is inspired by the recent settlement agreement with Mr. Lee, Mr. Kinsley also briefly cites the Valerie Plame case. And Michael Kinsley being Michael Kinsley, he makes sure that we remember that:
“Likewise in the Plame case: The real story was about the leaks -- a Bush White House stratagem to punish a troublemaker,….” (emphasis added)
Funny, but in his entire recollection of the Wen Ho Lee case, Mr. Kinsley can never get around to mentioning that it was the Clinton administration that went full bore after Mr.Lee – instead it’s just the “government”….until it becomes the “Bush White House”.
