....Or, is it something else? Is it submitting to control of the powerful, acting as their "mouthpiece", in exchange for continued access to them?
Last night on MSNBC, conservative political show host, Tucker Carlson, interviewed UK's Scotsman reporter, Gerri Peev, concerning her interview with an Obama foreign policy advisor who resigned after Peev reported her comments in the Scotsman:
Quote:
Obama Adviser Quits Over 'Off the Record' Crack at Clinton
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030800063.html
Washington Post, United States - 17 hours ago
As the story recounted: " 'She is a monster, too -- that is off the record -- she is stooping to anything,' Ms. Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her....
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Quote:
CARLSON: What -- she wanted it off the record. Typically, the arrangement is if someone you're interviewing wants a quote off the record, you give it to them off the record. Why didn't you do that?
PEEV: <h3>Are you really that acquiescent in the United States?</h3> In the United Kingdom, journalists believe that <h3>on or off the record is a principle that's decided ahead of the interview. If a figure in public life.</h3>
CARLSON: Right.
PEEV: Someone who's ostensibly going to be an advisor to the man who could be the most powerful politician in the world, if she makes a comment and decides it's a bit too controversial and wants to withdraw it immediately after, unfortunately if the interview is on the record, it has to go ahead.
CARLSON: Right. Well, it's a little.
PEEV: I didn't set out in any way, shape.
CARLSON: Right. But I mean, since journalistic standards in Great Britain are so much dramatically lower than they are here, it's a little much being lectured on journalistic ethics by a reporter from the "Scotsman," <h3>but I wonder if you could just explain what you think the effect is on the relationship between the press and the powerful.</h3> People don't talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them as you did in this piece.
Don't you think that hurts the rest of us in our effort to get to the truth from the principals in these campaigns?
PEEV: If this is the first time that candid remarks have been published about what one campaign team thinks of the other candidate, then I would argue that your journalists aren't doing a very good job of getting to the truth. Now I did not go out of my way in any way, shape or form to hurt Miss Power. I believe she's an intelligent and perfectly affable woman. In fact, she's -- she is incredibly intelligent so she -- who knows she may have known what she was doing.
She regretted it. She probably acted with integrity. It's not for me to decide one way or the other whether she did the right thing. But I did not go out and try to end her career.
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Watch Tucker Carlson's interview with Peev:
Do you agree with Carlson or Peev? Isn't the problem with the white house press corps for example, the fact that they have made the decision to muzzle their reporting about the president and his administration in exchange for access to the president and his staff.
If the press trades access to the powerful for restraint in their reporting and questioning of the president and of his staff, haven't they effectively put themselves under the control of the powerful, instead of reporting what they consider to be news worthy about their words and actions?
Who has more credibility, Carlson or Peev? If Carlson's principles assure him continued access to the powerful, can we expect that he will report anything significant or negative about them?