Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Yet Another New Republic Edition)

Over at the New Republic, David Greenberg defends Bob Woodward:

Open University: Some readers may know that, between stints at TNR in the 1990s, I worked as an assistant to Woodward on The Agenda, and I have argued for the indispensability of Woodward's reporting--and against the criticisms of him by many of my usual ideological brethren--in this piece for The Boston Globe...

That's interesting. Two years ago I wrote:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily JournalIt is certainly true that nothing Bob Woodward writes can be fully trusted without very, very careful, careful checking.... For the full Woodward treatment, read his The Agenda, then read his Maestro, contemplate how one and the same person could use the Third Person Omniscient to write both accounts of the making of Clinton economic policy, and collapse to the floor in helpless laughter...

I would like to hear Mr. Greenberg explain how Woodward's account of the making of Clinton economic policy in Maestro--where an intelligent but naive president is tutored in the realities of economic policy by wise Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, and chooses intelligent policies in the national interest--is consistent with the account that Greenberg worked on in Woodward's The Agenda, in which the process (a very good, a very thoughtful process, that I know, for I was there) is reported to have been, in Woodward's words, "chaos. Absolute chaos."

I don't think Greenberg can. I don't think Greenberg dares try. And if he dares not try, then he needs to stay quiet. Very quiet.

Comments

[Anna Haynes]

What "under the table" forces could be operating to give us the journalism we have, and how likely is it that they're playing a major role?

Given that history is "all the data that we have so far" (thus is handy for shedding light on the present), historically, how often have there been periods and places (besides post-WWII U.S. with Operation Mockingbird) where news coverage was, um, "under the influence"?
Are there historians of journalism, and if so what's their perspective?
And what do journalists say about this, off the record?

Maybe Occam's Razor says no need to invoke such factors, I don't know.

also, did Byron Calame ever get answers, when he was trying to find out about security clearances of NY Times staff and management?

[Samuel Knight]

It's down right pathetic having liberals be so nice to Woodward all of a sudden. Huffington and others had it right:

He's a BSer now, and he was a BSer before. He's just sticking the knife in when he thinks it's easy.

Disgraceful little weasel.

He makes me ashamed to be a WASP.

[sm]

Woodward is a political operative, a gun for hire.

He may be shooting at Bush, Rumsfeld, and Condi now, but he's for hire.

There seem to be an awful lot of them in American "journalism."

[mwg]

This is entirely a dog bites man story. We can't shoot this particular dog, what with it being a magazine and all, but we can ignore it.

[john]

Oh no, Brad, a google ad is pushing Chomsky books on your site!! You've been tied to Hugo Chavez, and worse, CHOMSKY! What will you do?

[Michael Russell]

Greenberg, as you may be hinting--"I don't think Greenberg dares try, and if he dares not try, he needs stay quiet, very quiet"--could have had more to do with the writing of "The Agenda" than being just an "assistant". Large portions of Woodward's books being ghostwritten explains both his belated about-face on the Bush administration, and the contradictory accounts of the Clinton economic advisory meeting that you attended.