Reading the transcript of yesterday's briefing by White House press secretary Scott McClellan, it's clear that the press is closing ranks behind Newsweek, despite the magazine's retraction of a story alleging Koran desecration at Guantanamo Bay. McClellan called on Newsweek to "do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done, particularly in the region," and a reporter (apparently ABC's Terry Moran) bristled:
Q: With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it's appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?This is a fascinating exchange. The questioner begins by accusing McClellan of exceeding his authority ("Who made you the editor of Newsweek?"), then switches to whining about an assault on press freedom ("You're pressuring them").
McClellan: I'm not telling them. I'm saying that we would encourage them to help--
Q: You're pressuring them.
McClellan: No, I'm saying that we would encourage them--
Q: It's not pressure?
McClellan: Look, this report caused serious damage to the image of the United States abroad. And Newsweek has said that they got it wrong. I think Newsweek recognizes the responsibility they have. We appreciate
the step that they took by retracting the story. Now we would encourage them to move forward and do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done by this report. And that's all I'm saying. But, no, you're absolutely right, it's not my position to get into telling people what they can and cannot report.
In truth, all McClellan has done is exercise his own constitutional rights by criticizing Newsweek. The questioner is failing to distinguish the press's freedom, which is in no way jeopardized by the Newsweek scandal and the concomitant criticism, from its power, which assuredly is.
The press's power--its ability to influence events--is inherent in the practice of journalism; were it not, dictators would have no need to restrict press freedom. But the press's power, especially in a free society, rests on its credibility--that is, on the reader's trust that the press is telling the truth. When the press falls short of that trust, as Newsweek has done here, it diminishes its own power.
"Some news media commentators said that the White House was blaming the press for problems of its [the White House's] own making," reports Elisabeth Bumiller in today's New York Times:
"This is hardly the first time that the administration has sought to portray the American media as inadequately patriotic," said Marvin Kalb, a senior fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. "They are addressing the mistake, and not the essence of the story. The essence of the story is that the United States has been rather indelicate, to put it mildly, in the way that they have treated prisoners of war [sic]."
It's the "fake but accurate" defense again: What's important is not the facts but the "essence of the story." What's happening here is that journalists are engaging in political damage control, trying to limit the diminution of their power that will result from Newsweek's error. It's entirely understandable--journalists are, after all, human beings--but thinking about it this way helps demystify the press, which turns out to be acting just like any other institution when faced with problems of its own making.
Moreover, as we argued yesterday, the "essence of the story" is at the root of the problem. It's rare for journalists to get the facts wrong as spectacularly as Newsweek did, or as CBS did with its fraudulent National Guard report last year. But the so-called mainstream media have a worldview, formed in the Vietnam and Watergate era, that distorts the overall picture their reporting presents. Consider this exchange from the McClellan briefing, apparently involving the Times' Bumiller:
Q: Are you asking them to write a story about how great the American military is; is that what you're saying here?Allow us to answer the question: Yes, in our opinion, the press should produce more stories--many more than it does--about how great the American military is. When it does so, it should adhere as rigorously to the facts as we expect it to do when it produces stories that make the military look bad.
McClellan: Elisabeth, let me finish my sentence. Our military--
Q: You've already said what you're--I know what--how it ends.
But the cynicism about the military that underlies Bumiller's question is deeply embedded in the mainstream media. That is why the press was obsessed with Abu Ghraib, while it is left to an Australian blogger to track good news from Iraq and Afghanistan in a systematic way.
A free press is vital to a democratic society; the press is not, and should not be, a propaganda organ of the government. And "adversary" journalism has its place. An important reason that the military is as great as it is, and that the government is as honest as it is, is that the press is aggressive in holding them accountable.
What has changed of late is that the press, which is used to being accountable to no one but itself, has increasingly found itself taken to task--by journalists who dissent from the "mainstream" worldview, by bloggers and even by government officials. Kalbian fake-but-accurate spin is a wholly inadequate response, but it is a sign that the press's complacency is crumbling. If the criticism keeps up--and it will--the mainstream media will eventually feel compelled to respond in a serious way. American journalism will be better for it.
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