Transcript: Tom Rosenstiel On The New York Times Article On John McCain
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Feb. 22, 2008
|
 |
National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with Tom Rosenstiel for the Feb. 22 edition of "National Journal On Air." This is a transcript of their conversation.
Audio of the full show is also available.
Q: I want to welcome Tom Rosenstiel. He is the Director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Welcome.
Rosenstiel: Thanks.Q: So let's talk about The New York Times report on John McCain and its allegation that he may have had an improper relationship with a lobbyist. Do you see problems with that story?
Rosenstiel: There are a couple of problems, I think. The first problem is that the anonymous sources quoted in the story are not alleging that a relationship existed. They are alleging that they worried that a relationship existed. They don't offer any real proof to establish that there was a personal relationship, an affair, or some adulterous connection. The second problem in the story is that the other test for mainstream press when doing a story like this is, why is it in the public interest? And typically there is some establishment that the relationship represents hypocrisy or that this relationship, if established, led the politician to do something improper -- and that's murky in this story.Q: If the paper didn't establish in this story, beyond a doubt, that there was a romantic relationship between John McCain and this lobbyist, and didn't hit it out of the park in terms of establishing that he had done something improper on her behalf -- doesn't this fall short of what would be the kind of journalistic standard that would be applied when the consequences of the story are so great?
Rosenstiel: I'm afraid it does. The fact that people are talking about the New York Times and not talking about John McCain's record is almost proof on its face that the story didn't meet its own test. No news organization wants people to be talking about -- was the story fair? They want people to be talking about the substance of the story the day it runs. But the problem here really isn't about anonymous sources. Imagine that the sources were on the record and these people said, "we were worried that there was a relationship and so we had these meetings." We'd still be having a conversation about whether this story met the test.Q: Just a final question here -- on the subject of anonymous sources, you make a very good point that even if they had been on the record, they didn't seem to have the goods. But should a news organization grant anonymity to sources who form the basis of a story like this when it's not clear why they should be shielded by anonymity? They can't lose their jobs. They are former staffers. Their lives don't appear to be in danger. Shouldn't the bar in a story like this be pretty high when it comes to conferring anonymity to a source?The problem is that we're in the era of "show me" journalism. We're no longer in the era of "trust me" journalism. The idea that you would say, "CBS News has learned" or Ben Bradlee says it's good enough for him, therefore it's good enough for me -- that's passed. Now we are in an environment where people say, show me your proof. Prove to me that I should believe your story. That environment is illustrated by the fact that the day the story ran you have conservatives saying this is going to help John McCain. Because the constituency he is having trouble with so distrusts The New York Times, that being attacked by that newspaper provides bona fides to John McCain. In that kind of an environment, the bar is higher for a news organization to have stories that people say, "wow, they really have the goods here. I see why they did this story. I see what they did." You don't want the news organization to be the subject of the controversy.
Rosenstiel: It's a very good point. Surveys show that people don't really like anonymous sourcing, but they do understand why it's necessary. Essentially the rules of journalism, the philosophy that journalists live by is that they should want to share as much information with their audience as possible. So you should grant anonymity reluctantly and only if the source is at risk and only if the information can't be derived any other way. This is a situation where John McCain and his people can probably figure out who these sources were if they haven't already.Q: Well, there's going to be a lot more discussion about this, certainly, in the world of journalism. Our thanks to Tom Rosenstiel, who is the Director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Thank you.There isn't a lot of gain for anonymity for the sources, and there's almost no gain for the news organization. The other problem is that there is a long standing idea in journalism that you shouldn't use anonymous sources to render opinions. Using anonymous sources to put facts in evidence that then could be corroborated by other people is one thing. But to have people say, "I don't like this person" or "I think this about this person" is a different matter and some people call it the anonymous pejorative. This is very close to that because these sources were saying, "we were worried about this and so we did these things." Now, there are facts about whether they had meetings or whether they told somebody something, but all of that derives from their suspicion or their feeling. So it's not quite the anonymous pejorative, but it's pretty close to it.
Rosenstiel: Thanks.