The Vanity Fair article about Clinton is more stenography than it is journalism:
Quote:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...nographer.html
What Type of Job Duties Do Stenographers Have?
If you are considering a career as a stenographer, one of the most important things that you should consider is what type of job duties stenographers have. They transcribe, or type, material which they are dictated. This can include orders, memos, correspondence, reports and various other types of information.
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Quote:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/f.../clinton200807
The Comeback Id
....I just think those guys are radioactive,” one former aide to Clinton who is still in occasional affectionate touch with him told me recently, referring to Burkle and (to a lesser extent) Bing. “I stay far away from them.”
Another former aide, trusted by Clinton for his good judgment, said, “On the sort of money, women, all that stuff … I’m the bad guy. All this stuff is kept away from me. Whatever they’re doing, they definitely view me as somebody you cannot confide in.”
A longtime Clinton-watcher, who has had ties to the former president since his first campaign for governor of Arkansas, said of Clinton’s sometimes questionable associations, “I don’t know what to make of any of that, if it’s a voyeuristic experience, or if he’s participating in it.”
Yet another long-serving Clinton aide said simply, “If you figure it out, would you let me know?”.....
...There are those friends who worry that Clinton has never been the same since his quadruple-bypass surgery, in 2004, and the unexpected follow-up operation six months later to remove accumulated scar tissue on his lung.
“There’s an anger in him that I find surprising,” one senior aide, who has known and served both Clintons for years, told me this spring. “There seems to be an abiding anger in him, and not just the summer thunderstorms of old. He has been called into question repeatedly by top staff. The fact is, you can only weigh in so often on this stuff. It’s just a huge force of nature.”...
....“When he first started transitioning, it was hard,” one former longtime aide told me. “But then he said to me, ‘I’ve always been a guy who could bloom where I was planted.’ I’ve been impressed by how truly happy he’s been as an ex-president. He’s much more focused than I would ever think he would be.”...
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Even on the TFP politics thread, this poll of members shows there is no expectation that journalists should seek and print the things that the powerful will not voluntarily say "on the record"....aka their "secrets", since they do not want what they are saying, actually attributed to them:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...crets+powerful
....so, since there is no demand for journalists to be other than obedient stenographers who take dictation and pass it on, they get away with it, as do the "unidentified sources" who freely use the stenographers to slur and manipulate without any accountability.....the stenographers only report what is dictated to them, on condition that they will keep the source secret. Who do the stenographers take dictation for....the powerful.....