# Do you have the right to dodge the media? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 6, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028 "2008-06-06T16:10:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/21 "2008-06-06T18:35:50Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Yesterday, Obama threw them a bone that I don’t see McCain ever doing…he’s going to allow limited press at every fundraiser he holds, as opposed to the standard private fundraisers that prevail now. [/QUOTE] This is a damned good move. Haven’t we seen a couple of instances already where some speakers at private fundraisers or events said some impolitic things, and they were outed by the wonders of mobile technology? If everyone knows the event is at least semi-public, there’s less chance of unintended gaffes. On a less cynical note, it also helps foster a sense of inclusiveness, that Obama is opening up his events to everyone, not just those with money to spend. Not to mention the extra publicity. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/22 "2008-06-06T18:35:55Z")
[QUOTE=Steve MB] With specific exceptions (e.g. if the city has a law requring that city council meetings be held openly, the members may not circumvent the law by hammering out a deal in private and then going through the motions in public), people have a right to meet and to exclude people they don’t want (either by holding the meeting on private property and telling the interlopers to get out or by taking evasive action). [/QUOTE] Exactly right. No one, the press included, had the right to attend Obama and Clinton’s meeting in a private home, even that of a fellow U.S. senator. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/23 "2008-06-06T18:38:41Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] This is a damned good move. Haven’t we seen a couple of instances already where some speakers at private fundraisers or events said some impolitic things, and they were outed by the wonders of mobile technology? If everyone knows the event is at least semi-public, there’s less chance of unintended gaffes. On a less cynical note, it also helps foster a sense of inclusiveness, that Obama is opening up his events to everyone, not just those with money to spend. Not to mention the extra publicity. [/QUOTE] Yes, this is definitely a response to the Mayhill Fowler “bitter” story, where the Huffington Post blogger reported on a no-press Obama fundraiser at a private home in California during the run-up to the PA primary. Obama has promised that at least one reporter will be given credentials at every fundraiser from now on. Limited because some venues are not appropriate for having an entire press gaggle (private homes, very small halls or restaurants, etc). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/24 "2008-06-06T19:41:24Z")
Individuals have a “right” to “dodge” the press. The press and the public have a right to criticize and complain if they are being kept out of a meeting of public interest. Sometimes even if a public figure is exercising a “right,” it is wrong for him or her to do so. In this case, I don’t see a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/25 "2008-06-06T20:40:45Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] The guys on the plane were probably pissed. But they’re peons, and the joke was on them. The important media people are more savvy. Tom Brokaw, for example, just said that the meeting “showed a great deal of maturity.” [/QUOTE] Brokaw thinks it shows maturity to put your press on a plane and send them back to Chicago instead of telling them outright that it’s a private meeting? I don’t; it makes Obama look like an asshole. (If that’s how it happened.) I will assume for the moment that Obama doesn’t share your contempt for the working press. Saying “look, this is off the record” is one thing. Saying “ha ha, sucker, I pwned you” is something else, and passive-aggressive is a polite term for it. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/26 "2008-06-06T21:21:44Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] Brokaw thinks it shows maturity to put your press on a plane and send them back to Chicago instead of telling them outright that it’s a private meeting? [/QUOTE] Yes, of course. Because the problem is that the press is decidedly IMmature. As you would know had you watched, the press thought they were holding a private meeting at Hillary’s house, and blocked up the whole street staking out her home, shining lights all over it, zooming at shadows on curtains, and generally acting like a circus. For me, those are the assholes. And I imagine that if they were doing that outside your house, you’d feel the same way. I like how Obama handled it; it was reminiscent of Sun Tzu. I’ve been trying to tell you and your people that you’re not dealing with John Kerry here. Fuck up, and Obama will bury you. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/27 "2008-06-06T21:44:17Z")
Obama says “Washington” is the problem and requires fixing. I would take that to mean the Washington Press Corps as well. After all, had they done their job correctly from the start, Bush would not now be president. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/28 "2008-06-06T22:01:21Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] … the press thought they were holding a private meeting at Hillary’s house, and blocked up the whole street staking out her home… [/QUOTE] See, this is the reason why I fully endorse ditching the press. As Wiley Slaughter says in _Mastergate_, “I have never been opposed to the notion that the press has the right to print what it knows. I merely believe that they don’t have to _know_ everything.” The press has no reliable sense of discretion. When a political candidate says, “I wish to have a private meeting,” the reporter instead hears, “I defy you to get this story and print it anyway.” ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/29 "2008-06-06T22:07:52Z")
In some sense, that’s what it does mean oftentimes. If they really wanted to have a genuinely _private_ meeting, they wouldn’t tell anyone it was happening. The issue is that the politician does want people to know something, but only what he wants them to know. They’re trying to game the press. It’s supposed to be the press’s job to resist gaming and find out everything it can, just in case there’s something that the public _should_ know about but the pol doesn’t want getting out. “Discretion” is not really of high value in a democratic system. It bows to what should be the most important democratic value, a fully informed public. The flaw in what we have now is that the news organizations go after trivia and minutia rather than real information. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/30 "2008-06-06T22:21:13Z")
[QUOTE=Fish] The press has no reliable sense of discretion. When a political candidate says, “I wish to have a private meeting,” the reporter instead hears, “I defy you to get this story and print it anyway.” [/QUOTE] And why _shouldn’t_ they think that way? ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/31 "2008-06-06T22:27:26Z")
If I’m reading the news reports right, that’s exactly what Senator Obama did: the press only found out about the private meeting _after_ their plane had taken off. He _didn’t_ tell them “I’m going to have a private meeting.” He just did it. And I reject your contention that discretion isn’t highly valued in a democratic society: it is essential. A free press could in theory disclose a great deal of damaging information, such as troop movements or military specifications, that would do far more harm than good to the nation if published. The press _must_ have the discretion to know which things the public _must_ know, and which things the press simply hopes the public will pay to know. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/32 "2008-06-06T22:42:22Z")
[QUOTE=Fish] And I reject your contention that discretion isn’t highly valued in a democratic society: it is essential. [/quote] I don’t recall saying anything of the sort. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2008, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/33 "2008-06-06T23:08:26Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] And why _shouldn’t_ they think that way? [/QUOTE] They should. They do. That’s why Obama did what he did. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/34 "2008-06-07T00:44:00Z")
[QUOTE=Fish] A free press could in theory disclose a great deal of damaging information, such as troop movements or military specifications, that would do far more harm than good to the nation if published. [/quote] Oh, come on that’s a complete cop out. Troop movements and military specifications are such a specialized and rarely implicated subject in real life that they pretty much constitute the Godwin’s Law trigger for free speech/press discussions. To engage the subject intelligently, one must avoid the extreme and irrelevant example. And even admitting that discretion might be _necessary_ for this extreme case, it still constitutes a _compromise_ with democratic values. That is, it’s still anti-democratic. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/35 "2008-06-07T02:09:33Z")
If you define “democracy” as being “informed democracy” and if you define “informed democracy” as “the public must be effectively omniscient,” then yes, any deficit of information is less than democratic. But I thought you were trying to avoid extreme and irrelevant examples. Can we at least agree that there is a distinct difference between _access_ to necessary information, and _indiscriminate publishing_ of accessible information? Information handled by our government includes names, addresses, drivers’ licenses, social security numbers, tax return information, which taxpayers received a stimulus check and how much, which taxpayers are now or have ever been under investigation by law enforcement, and so on. Should this information be published in the average newspaper on a daily basis? No: not until or unless it becomes necessary to publish it. That’s discretion. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/36 "2008-06-07T04:43:23Z")
[QUOTE=Fish] The press _must_ have the discretion to know which things the public _must_ know… [/QUOTE] I don’t think you are using “discretion” correctly here and I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this. Could you clear this up? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/37 "2008-06-07T06:51:10Z")
I think he’s talking hypothetically. In other words, if you insist as Shodan does that the press should have unlimited access to all information, then the release of some of that information could endanger peoples’ lives, and therefore (in Shodan world) the press would need to exercise careful discretion. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/38 "2008-06-07T11:00:29Z")
Press here. I may be the only person in this thread for whom this is a literal, and not theoretical, issue. I have opined on this in editorials over the last year and want to get some definitions out there. There is a VAST difference between disallowing access for whatever stated reason and DODGING the press. Example, from real life (no foolin’). A local man involved in a local event committed some acts that were, shall we say, less than wise. I had one of my reporters try to get the story. Multiple attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. Finally, I had the reporter call him from the newsroom and got his voice mail. Then I tossed my cell phone and him and the man in question picked up straightaway. Upon hearing who was calling he claimed to be (and I am NOT making this up) ‘Lost in a desert and would have to call us back’. So we ran with that and I did 750 words about how to handle the press for the public. In short, ‘no comment’ or ‘I don’t wish to discuss it’ is ALWAYS a legitimate answer. And no one is under any obligation, barring sunshine laws for governmental meetings, to allow access to or even inform the public about their meetings. It might be in their best interests to do so but that choice is theirs, not the medias. Obama did nothing wrong. Meeting with Clinton in private is a matter for himself and she to work through. It is possible that, politically, he harms himself through irritating the press corps, yes, but that’s a risk he may choose. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/39 "2008-06-07T11:36:55Z")
**Liberal** - I wonder how you got this - > [@Liberal](#): > > if you insist as Shodan does that the press should have unlimited access to all information from this - > [@Shodan](#): > > I think Obama’s press secretary (or whatever his title is) gave a completely adequate answer. Some meetings are private, and the press doesn’t get to go along or know about it. > > Some business cannot be properly conducted in the public eye. And some things really and truly are none of anybody else’s business. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2008, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028/40 "2008-06-07T13:09:57Z")
I apologize, **Shodan**. It appears that I mistook you for someone else. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-the-right-to-dodge-the-media/452028.md?page=3)