Democracy in America: Not in the public interest

Not in the public interest | Democracy in America | Economist.com: GERRI PEEV of the Scotsman just appeared on MSNBC to defend her decision to turn Samantha Power's hasty and quickly retracted "monster" comment into a thousand-word front-page article. The article, of course, has now cost Ms Power her position advising Barack Obama. Ms Peev said that it "would have been a derilection of duty" not to print the comment, and had said in the original article that it was "in the public interest". She repeated that conversations are taken off the record before they happen, not after.

Technically, Ms Peev is right about the use of off-the-record. Remarks must usually be established as off the record before they're uttered. But as Noam Scheiber and Mike Crowley of the New Republic as well as my Washington colleague agree, it is in a journalist's interest to get people to say interesting things, and using a technicality to help ruin their reputations by publishing unguarded comments not intended for publication does just the opposite: it forces politicians and their advisors to stick to robotically rehearsed talking points.

Ms Peev said that it was her duty to inform the world, with the "monster" comments, of the tensions between the two camps. Well, perhaps the news has only just gotten to the Scotsman, but most people following the race are not finding this news a big scoop. Repeating "monster", which Ms Power tried to retract, said nothing that several other juicy comments did not, which Ms Power gladly left on the record. For example, Ms Power said

You just look at her and think, 'Ergh'. But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive.

This would have shown the world how Ms Power felt about Mrs Clinton's campaign, so Ms Peev's self-declared duty to inform the world is a bit disingenous. She clearly just couldn't resist "monster".

To be sure, Ms Power made a mistake. Hillary Clinton is no monster, even if her campaign has been unseemly of late, and as a former journalist (including for The Economist in the 1990s) herself, Ms Power should have been more careful. But your correspondent has interviewed her and found her lively and interesting and honest, exactly what journalists should want. She took the time for a longish conversation on her mobile phone while negotiating Boston's traffic and under the stress of Harvard's final-exam season. She talked like journalists want sources to talk%u2014not like a hack or a flack, but in the animated and passionate way of someone who really cares about her work. That makes good interviewing, and may even elicit the kind of insider information that makes for good journalism. By contrast, finding out the banal fact that a politico is angry about a rival's tactics reveals nothing of real public interest. It can, however, ruin reputations. And it will make for worse journalism in the future, as advisors clam up, understandably seeing journalists as mostly interested in superficial nonsense. Public interest? Quite the opposite.

But Ms Peev had her day in the sun. Well done. Oh, and good luck getting good interviews in future.

Comments

[USpace]

.
Firing Powers was a mistake, Obama has shown himself to be subservient to the PIAPS.
Great post. Obama’s aide was right. Hillary is a monster. Of course not the same kind of monster as Hitler, Mao or Stalin, but a monster nonetheless.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
don't call monsters monsters

never expose their evil
never upset a monster

.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
claim to care for people

call yourself progressive
your policies hurt poor folk

.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
elect women presidents

who cover for their husbands
who rape other women

.
if you’re MAD
punish your country
VOTE for Hillary

.
http://www.hillaryproject.com/

Go here and watch ‘The Hillary Show’ with Howard Dean. It’s Hillarious!

http://www.stophernow.com/

http://absurdthoughtsaboutgod.blogspot.com/

:)
.