This is not the first time in recent weeks that the A.P. has apparently reported on the details of events that have not yet happened.
Which leads me to wonder; have journalistic standards recently been lowered, or has it always been standard practice to write and distribute stories based on the most probable course of events ? If the later, then why aren’t these stories at least kept from publication at least until after the events they claim to be reporting take place ?
Maybe the reporter should have worded it a little differently, e.g., “Cheney was scheduled to field energy questions … .”
I don’t see what’s wrong with reporting the most probable course of events. If the concert schedule says that Blue Oyster Cult is going to open for Pat Boone at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, then that’s probably what’s going to happen, so I report it that way. Blue Oyster Cult may, in fact, go on stage at 7:35 p.m., but that’s not really critical. We don’t wait to hold this story until after the concert because we want to let people know about it beforehand so they can buy tickets.
The timing of the article raises a few obvious questions.
Did this meeting Cheney supposedly had with Bush between midnight and 1:30 in the morning take place as reported ? If so was it a “typical” sort of meeting as J.G. Weiss seems to have implied; or was that quote referring to some other monday morning that had already occurred ?
Will we get an “authoritative” update this noon telling us all which of the events that supossedly took place this morning actually happened ?
If you publish stuff that is obviously made up, who’s going to believe anything you have to say ?
My question remains:
Has AP been doing this sort of thing for years, or is it a recent development ?
Let me try this again. The way I read it, the meeting with Bush and the energy meetings were scheduled for later that day, not between midnight and 1:30 a.m. The writer used present tense because some people would not have even gotten around to picking up the paper by the time those events occurred.
**
There will be a story that talks about what happened in the meetings, but not a story that exists simply to confirm that the meetings happened. And I’m willing to bet that every single one of those things did happen, because the reporter was looking at a schedule supplied by the White House. If, by chance, one of those meetings ends up being canceled, the world does not end in a ball of flames.
**
It’s not made up.
**
On second thought, I give up. It IS a big conspiracy of misinformation.
Do these schedules normally come supplied with quotes describing how the meetings went ?
Perhaps if I were a journalist I would already know the answer to this question, however IANAJ, and have never seen an article on what, if any, journalistic standards are applied to situations like this.
Is the later “story that talks about what happened in the meetings” likely to be derived from handouts as well, or do the reporters actually speak to participants afterwards ? Apparently the reporting of events at the white house has gotten pretty ritualized over the years.
I’m not interested in whether the process is a “big conspiracy of misinformation”, only in how it actually works, and how long it has worked in that way.
The quote, if you’ll notice, does not necessarily refer to how the meetings went. If someone asked you what your schedule was next Tuesday, for instance, and you checked your schedule and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, you might also say, “It’s a typical day.”
**
I’m not a White House reporter – I’m a West Coast sportswriter – so I couldn’t tell you their particular routine. But I imagine the guys at the Washington Post do drag themselves out to chat with Cheney and friends.
You are reading the tenses of the verbs in the story far too literally. If you’re planning a fishing trip on Saturday with a trip to McDonalds afterward, and someone asks you what your weekend plans are, you might say, “I’m going fishing, then I’m heading over to McDonalds.” See how you can use present-tense verbs to express future events?
Sure, but the reporter in the original quote used the past tense to describe future events, which is a whole different kettle of fish.
What are you doing on the 4th of July ?
“I’m going fishing, then I’m heading over to McDonalds.”
“I went fishing, then I headed over to McDonalds.”
I suppose the need to get the news out in a timely fashion requires all sorts of compromises,including nonstandard usage of tenses, but it’s still disconcerting to read about something that has apparently already happened tomorrow, or in some cases even the day after tomorrow.
This is similar to something the press does which always miffs me… the “X To Announce Y This Afternoon” headline.
If they already know what the announcement is, then it’s already BEEN ANNOUNCED. I don’t care if Bush is going to announce his declaration of war against San Marino at 2:00. If we already know that, it’s been announced. Why report it that way? Silly.