Anyhow, the new news is that the New York Times just admitted to going along with the game. Once Suskind’s remarks finally drew a wider audience than that of the Daily Trojan, the University of Southern California’s campus newspaper, an Iowa blogger named Tony Wright had an email exchange with a NYT editor about the scripting of questions. His commentary in italics:
So there you have it: the New York Times, the bastion of the So-Called Liberal Media (SCLM), lets Bush script their questions. And they don’t even feel it’s a problem for them; any complaints should be directed to Bush.
I don’t get it, RT, where’s the issue here? This has been known for ages AND it’s not just GWB. Reagan, Bush I and Clinton all had scripted Press Conferences.
ISTR that during the Iran-Contra press conference one of the reporters from Radio Marti raised a hand, got called upon, asked her question and was later fired. I remember thinking at the time that no one that far from the podium should be called on but there she was asking about US-Cuba during a press conference on a different topic.
The issue does come down to access. No access = no coverage. Any administration has the whip hand on the media unless all members get together to put a stop to it. And that’s never going to happen.
This isn’t news. The White House has always scripted contact with the press. (You can see on West Wing just how it is done.) Washington Post reporter, David Maraniss, wrote about one scripted confrontation from the Clinton administration in his 1995 biography about Bill, First in His Class: “It had the feel of a spontaneous encounter, the proud wife defending her man. In fact, it had been scripted. At a strategy meeting the day before, the Clinton team had decided that McRae needed to be confronted. ‘We have to take this guy on!’ Hillary said, and then she went out and did it.”
OK, maybe it’s been known for ages to you, but you worked that beat. And you and I both know that the press corps knows a lot of stuff that never makes it into the news. You know Joe Schmoe out in Kansas City knows nothing about this. I’d never even heard rumors of it before the past year or two.
So what’s happening here, Nate? If this is old news to you, why do Josh Marshall’s friends on the White House beat say it just isn’t so, even when they can be quoted anonymously?
As I said at Eschaton, I feel whipsawed: perfectly reasonable people on one side are telling me I’m seeing a conspiracy where none exists, and at least one perfectly reasonable person on the other side is telling me how shockingly naive I am.
If it’s true about the scripting of press conferences, I think it’s way overdue that it becomes common knowledge, so we can all be in on the joke the press has let itself become.
IMHO, that’s silly and outdated. When Krugman said in his intro to The Great Unraveling essentially the same thing about political coverage that Bill James said about writing about baseball 25 years ago, it seemed pretty obvious that it wasn’t about access; it was about laziness. Bill James didn’t need to talk to managers to write about baseball, Krugman doesn’t need to be at the morning press gaggle to write about politics, and neither do those reporters, most days. In this White House, it’s not like they’re going to learn anything interesting on background, either, as I’m sure you know. But doing real stories might involve actual work, while showing up at the daily press gaggles and phoning the usual folks on the other side to get the rest of the fixin’s of the ‘he said, she said’ story is easy work for a healthy paycheck.
I heard Don Gonya on NPR this weekend. He was the last reporter to ask a question and he said that he essentially made up the question as he stood up after being called on. He emphatically stated that no one in the White House knew what he would ask and no one asked him his list of potential questions beforehand.
He did however think that he might get called on, the Press Secretary had told him that it was time radio got some representation.
I’ll back World Eater’s suggestion of being pissed at any Administration which uses pre-screen press conference questions. And while we’re at it, let’s throw out some bile at any Administration that shuttles protesters into “freedom of speech zones” far away from wherever the President is planning to attend.
Is there any cite/proof that previous Administrations use pre-screened press conference questions?
Yeah, perfectly satisfied. It’s been SOP for years (but we’re tinfoilhats if we think so), it never happens (but we’re incredibly naive if we think so), and the current WH communications director said it happened at one specific Presidential press conference last March.
It sure doesn’t sum up what I know, and I would hope the same for you.
SOP for years? Cite for this?
The WH communications director says it happened once, and you take it as gospel? Why would you do this?
And various members of the press who would know better say it doesn’t happen… and yet you don’t accept what they say? Huh?
Not only that, but you seem to have mischaracterized the NYT’s position, too:
The ombudman most certainly did NOT say that the NYT “lets Bush script their questions.” He said he was uncertain if that reporter’s question was submitted beforehand. The difference is that the reporter could have been asked, in theory, by the WH to provide questions (as Bartlett or someone mentioned), but there is no indication that a) this happens all the time or b) that this particular reporter DID provide a question.
You obviously had your mind made up anyway, so there’s not much point in discussing it, is there?
Jonathan Chance. Feel free to believe him or not, but he’s my cite.
Because he said so on March 6, 2003, well before the current controversy. And it’s hard to see why the White House would want to say Bush’s press conferences were scripted if it wasn’t true.
I haven’t?
Seems I’ve given them equal weight here.
Did I say it happens all the time? No. (Who’s made up his mind here?)
But how am I supposed to interpret this? An editor at the NYT says he doesn’t know if Ms. Bumiller’s question was submitted to the president beforehand. Not “it would have been against NYT policy,” just “we don’t know about that particular instance.” Ditto the “you might write to the president if you are unhappy with this system.” If there ain’t no system, what’s to write the President about?
When I wrote the OP, the reason why I wrote it was that the weight of the evidence seemed to have piled up real high on one side of the question. If my OP seemed like I had made up my mind, well of course! I was making an assertion, and laying out the evidence supporting that assertion.
But show me where I’ve been unreceptive in my posts since then to evidence coming in on the other side. I’ve even brought some of it into play myself, in response to Nate’s claim that scripted Presidential press conferences are as normal as traffic jams on the Beltway.
Quite honestly, I don’t know what to think, but for the reasons I’ve cited, what Bartlett said seems to be the closest thing to a piece of unassailable evidence here. So in the continuum between ‘never happens’ and ‘happens all the time’, I’m opting for ‘has happened at least once’. That’s as much as I’m reasonably sure of right now.
Sheesh. Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed.
Maybe it’s the terminology. By ‘scripted’ I mean that the questions (or at least what the topic will be) is known ahead of time and answers can be prepared. Not that the Press Corps and the administration sits down and scripts the whole thing out.
Sort of an extension of ‘only call on the reporters who will ask the right questions’ theory.
As for those other reporters claiming it ‘absolutely’ doesn’t happen? All I can offer is that it was certainly an open secret while I was down there. And certainly GWB either A) believes it or B) wants to give that impression for whatever purposes.
As much as I would be very impressed if any president revives freeform TV and radio shows with his or her press conferences, it is quite understandable that any event he is involved in would be more or less scripted, especially in the day of TV and instant miscommunications.
Actually the scripting might help the reporters to write tighter and clearer questions, so the president won’t go off tangent (he does anyway, but we can’t help that).
I don’t think your first quote (from Dan Bartlett) says what you claim - the exact opposite, in fact. Reread the first paragraph. If the Bush team was scripting the press conferences, there would be no reason to limit the number of press conferences because they could go in a different direction. Clearly it could not go in a different direction if it was scripted, so Bartlett is obviously not saying what you claim.
Bartlett says “In this case, we know what the questions are going to be” - he does not say that in this case the questions were scripted. I think they knew what the questions were going to be because on the eve of war it is obvious that all questions would concern this subject.
(Your quotes from the PC itself also show nothing).