I am not going to try to get a White House press pass

WilliamPitt

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Thu Feb-10-05 11:40 PM
Original message

I am not going to try to get a White House press pass

Edited on Thu Feb-10-05 11:45 PM by WilliamPitt

Once upon a time, working the White House Press Briefing Room was the crown jewel of mainstream political journalism beats. That was it; short of reporting live from under the President�s desk or nailing down an interview with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, you weren�t going to get a better gig if you were a political reporter.

To hold such a position was also to be the repository for a great responsibility. If you are privileged enough to be placed there, if you have put in the time as a reporter to earn the right to be there, you are the first line of defense in the eternal struggle between the rights and well-being of the people and governments that are always willing and ready to lie, cheat and steal in our name and �for our own good.�

All governments lie. That is what they do. A reporter in the White House Press Briefing Room bears the burden of being the person whose role it is to speak truth to power, to write down what happens after speaking truth to power, and to beat their editors and publishers about the head and shoulders to make sure that truth is delivered to the people intact.

We perhaps like to imagine the men and women in that briefing room � if we take the time to think of them at all � as people with big ears and sharp eyes, with too many pens in their pockets, a rolodex with every important name on the planet sitting on their desks, a hand well used to holding a glass of scotch, an unspoken promise to keep sources protected to the bitter end, and a bedrock sense of being beholden to nothing and no one beyond the integrity and mission of their chosen profession. �Without Fear or Favor,� goes the refrain.

Something like that might have existed at one time in our history. Certainly, careerism has always played a part in the reporting of any journalist in that briefing room. Make the administration spokesperson angry enough and he or she will pull your pass, thus humiliating you and derailing your climb up the ladder. Probably a lot of reporters have let important stories drop in order to preserve their access and their careers, but the really good ones report the stuff anyway, and they wind up being the ones asked to speak at the commencement for the Columbia School of Journalism. Ask Seymour Hersh what it means to be a good journalist. He can tell you.

Something like that might have once existed, but it is almost completely gone now. The sad and sordid tale of Jeff �Don�t Call Me John Guckert� Gannon is a final nail in the coffin, as far as I am concerned. This story went from irritating to outrageous to appalling to downright nauseating and scary in rapid succession.

Gannon wasn�t just some gomer who got a day pass. He had serious access, as displayed by his knowledge of a CIA memo that no one else had ever heard of or seen. He bragged publicly about playing a key role in an act of treason perpetrated by members of this administration, something he would not have been able to do had he not had friends inside the Bush White House. Scott McLellan claims to not know him. I, for one, think that is a bald-faced lie.

This is journalism today, and Gannon isn�t alone in disgrace. Conservative columnist Armstrong Williams got paid more than a quarter of a million dollars by the Bush administration to peddle No Child Left Behind. Conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher got $21,500 to peddle Bush�s ideas on marriage. Conservative columnist Mike McManus got $10,000 to pitch the same policy as Gallagher.

This particular administration can�t sell its policy initiatives on the merits, but has to pay journalists to pimp them by proxy. As bad as that is, it is far worse to know that there are journalists out there who would willingly play that role. Most of them don�t even have to get paid to preach the party line. The aforementioned careerism, and the simple fact that a lot of �reporters� these days are little more than vapid, blow-dried spokesmodels trying to get famous, is enough to get too many of them to roll over and sing for their supper.

Wolf Blitzer and Howard Kurtz got ton minutes of television time with a guy who was involved in blowing the cover of a CIA operative tasked to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists, and the best they could do was to let him talk about how sad he is that all these bad people are after him. That pretty much says it all. The combination of careerism, an absence of journalistic standards, and the notorious allergy the mainstream media has when it comes to self-critique, has proven to be a poisonous cocktail.

Some of my co-workers, along with some of you, have said they think I should try to get one of those day-passes to the briefing room, to see if it is as easy as it sounds. Once upon a time, the very idea of walking into the White House Press Briefing Room and raising my hand with the rest of the crush would have kept me awake nights in giddy anticipation. To walk in the footsteps of giants, at least in my profession, would have felt akin to striding to the high-rollers table in the best casino in Vegas with a fat wad of bills and an eye for the opening.

After Gannon, after Williams, after Gallagher, after McManus, after Wolf and Howie, after seeing what corporate conglomerate ownership of journalism has done to a once-honorable calling, after watching this administration ruthlessly exploit the glaring cracks in what we call reporting today, I don�t feel that way anymore. Today, walking into the White House Press Briefing Room would make me feel like a cheapjack slot jockey sneaking into a casino on the dusty end of the strip, hoping to hustle a few chips from the dealer who knows the table is already fixed.

It is a lessening of us all, and it is very, very dangerous, and I will not caper in that parliament of whores. It was an incredibly nice suggestion and I am honored that you thought of me, but I can't do it.