Examining Journalism

A Look at Politics and Press Coverage

Jay Rosen , author of the blog PressThink and journalism professor at NYU, was online Thursday, May 18, at noon ET to examine current issues in journalism: relations between the press and the Bush White House, Press Secretary Tony Snow 's first week behind the podium, White House chief of staff Josh Bolten 's influence in the administration, media coverage of alleged leaks, the role of bloggers and how the White House press corps has changed.

The transcript follows.

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Minneapolis, Minn.: Jay, nice to see you here.

On Tuesday the Wall Street Journal used you to give a big smackdown to the blogs on the Jason Leopold story alleging a Rove indictment. Do you think that was fair? Many of the biggest blogs on the left -- Tim Grieve, Peter Daou, Firedoglake, The Next Hurrah, even Raw Story -- treated Leopold's story with responsible skepticism from the beginning.

Jay Rosen: I wasn't happy with the way that came out. You talk to reporters for a good while about a great many things, and what is quoted is so tiny. Sometimes that system doesn't work very well. (And that's one reason I write a blog.)

I didn't realize what use could be made of my comments until I saw the Wall Street Journal article by Anne Marie Squeo. As I recall the interview I spent much of it arguing with the reporter (an NYU grad, and fun to talk to...) about the accuracy of her attitude: "On the Web, anything goes. No matter how far fetched, it gets picked up. Then we're off to the races with rumors and much worse! There's no accountability. No ethics. Let's take Jason Leopold..."

I was trying to establish that while the old system of controls is, in fact, giving way, the new system for establishing reliability among blogs and online news sites is being born, and is not--at all--what Anne Marie Squeo (or her editors) see when they look at the Web. The Wild West! Anything goes! No one accountable for nothing. That's a conversation about a cartoon. Tim Grieve in Salon gave a good reply to Anne Marie Squeo.

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New York, N.Y.: Jay,

How have White House press relations changed since Teddy Roosevelt described the "Man with the Muck Rake", Spiro Agnew described "nattering nabobs of negativism" and the gotcha/stiff'dya rollback relations today?

Jay Rosen: Teddy Roosevelt was the first to invite the press in from the street, in from the cold. He set aside a room in the White House for reporters to work in, and in doing that brought the press into the presidency -- now a working part. So the executive branch got a interlocutor, and that is what the White House Press corps is.

This was actually a way of expanding presidential influence, and it gave the White House an edge over Congress in the new theatre of media politics and presidential character.

By the time Spiro Agnew lit into "these men of the media" who had become so powerful, the partnership between the presidency and the press had accomplished a lot. Agnew showed it was possible to run against the press while in office. Instead of using it as a bully pulpit, tear down the pulpit and incite the crowd by your reaction against the culture elites who had commandeered it. Rather than controlling the news agenda, discredit the news carriers and then your own agenda can roll on, free and clear.

Agnew was a failed politician, but his idea--make culture war with the press, excite your base, weaken one of your adversaries--finally triumphed during the two terms of George W. Bush. That's what I call rollback. Scott McClellan was Agnew at the podium.

Okay, too glib. But you get the point.

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Marietta, Ga.: Hi Jay:

It's Leonard at PJNet.org. If you were editor of a major newspaper, how would you be working with your audience?

Jay Rosen: I would be telling my people we're going put into practice Dan Gillmor's simple insight: My readers know more than I do. Bring me the journalism that follows from that fact, I would tell them.

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Washington, D.C.: How would you describe the relationship between Fox News and the White House? And is there anything similar on the other side?

Jay Rosen: I think Fox is an Administration-friendly but mostly independent news network that is well-connected to Bush World-- in a way that other news empires are not. I would treat the movement of Snow to the White House as normal traffic between the two.

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East Peoria, Ill.: Jay,

Do you feel that the question about Snow's yellow bracelet, by a local journalist, was pre-planned, so that Snow could garner sympathy on his first day?

Jay Rosen: Nope.

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Nashville, Tenn.: After both BellSouth and Verizon denied handing domestic phone records to the NSA, USAT notably stopped short of saying "we stand by the story." One can almost smell the sweat from the USAT newsroom. After all the Gannett criticism of the use of confidential sources by others, do you think that USAT itself has now been burned by anonymous "sources with direct knowledge" of the program?

Jay Rosen: Seems to me we are just at the start of something.

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Washington, D.C.: Did the MSM give Snow a pass on "tar baby" -- or it just a legitimate, colorful term?

Jay Rosen: I don't think it's a big deal that he used the term, myself. I don't think much of a controversy ginned up around it, either. But you could say it was poor craft on his part, because you don't want that to be one focus of your first briefing.

Jay Rosen: I would like to see less attention on "slips" and more on slides-- what reporters let slide because its no longer news, or hard to explain, or too boring to some.

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Portland, Ore.: Is Tony Snow offering anything more than a change in personal style to the press (and the people of this country). Or is it just more of the same policy of press nullification you have so wisely identified as the favored mode of this administration?

Jay Rosen: I don't know yet. I'm not sure he does.

After Snow was hired, I wrote about the signs of regret that appeared in news accounts, where people in the White House basically said they blew it with the news media-- went too far, got hurt by being so disengaged, and so on. Of course they said it anonymously. Who knows how real that was? I am not sure there's any stock-taking there. Rollback may be alive and well, but with better hair in Tony Snow. We don't know yet. We will know by July 4th.

My very strong impression after watching Snow this week is that to have a potential star in the Administration preaching from the podium would be a new dynamic in the Bush White House, and probably not welcome to all power players in the West Wing. Snow has charisma, and convictions. He's articulate, quick on his feet. He could become a factor. But what happens when he has to defend the indefensible? Then we'll see what moxy he has.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Do you think Tony Snow's emotional moment was such a big deal as the media made it out to be? Has it gotten to the point that, when a (Bush) administration member shows his softer side, we're supposed to be impressed and pleasantly surprised? Like, we didn't realize he was human before? I don't get it. I think it's an outgrowth of our culture's obsession with knowing every detail of celebrities' personal lives. Now, we're doing the same to those in government. Frankly, I'm more concerned that someone's doing a good job and is honest and competent and has integrity. Snow's emotional reaction to the bracelet question isn't the problem. The problem is that it was presented in the media like a rare display of humanity that warranted special coverage. I wonder if it would have made such headlines if he weren't the spokesperson for a president who's so reviled at the moment.

Jay Rosen: No, I think it was the contrast with a Scott McClellan who did seem almost machine-like in his style of non-communication.

It wasn't fake. This itself said something in that room.

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Washington, D.C.: Do any bloggers currently have access to White House briefings? If so, which ones? It seems like they have a reputation as being outsiders looking in, vs. having direct access most of the time.

Jay Rosen: Yes. See as one example the work of Eric Brewer of BTC News . He was there at Snow's debut. It's important that he is, too. Often Brewer will try to ask something that group think in the press wouldn't permit.

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Madison, Wis.: I find it astonishing that neither The Washington Post nor the NY Times editorials has had anything to say about Brian Ross of ABC News' report that the Bush Administration is using the National Security Letters (NSL) provision of the Patriot Act to monitor and collect the phone records (and perhaps other information) of certain reporters who have raised questions about the legality of certain administration actions.

Recently, Patrick Fitzgerald had to go to court to get the phone records of Judith Miller. There was a lot of howl from the media about this because of freedom of press concerns. Yet now when the Administration decides to get the phone records of reporters without any court approval, the press is surprisingly mum about the whole thing. How come?

Jay Rosen: I think with every one of these stories, what is surfacing is such a small part of the forces at play that caused the story to come out, and most of what we need to know is hidden, despite what we call the "revelations."

Sometimes what you see as inaction in the press is people grappling with this condition.

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Re: Nashville's Comment: The telephone companies are very careful in their denials that they are giving call records to the NSA. And - it took them a while to come up with the right press releases. USAT will do more reporting on this, in my opinion. Look for the phone companies passing call records THROUGH an intermediary company or some entity, not directly. Hence, their ability to deny giving records to NSA directly.

Jay Rosen: This is an extremely serious story, and it needs to be investigated by more than one agency. Journalism, and Congress, and bloggers, and NGO's. We cannot let it become another one of those frozen scandals.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Do you think Snow should be fired for using a negative racial term--tar baby--during his first press conference?

Jay Rosen: No.

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Washington D.C. : Independence of thought has not be a key requirement for Presidential Appointments. How do you think Josh Bolten will get past this and make educated and calculated choices that will reflect real promise for the American people?

Jay Rosen: That is a great question. When the record is written on the Bush White House one of the biggest black marks against Bush himself will be his tendency to choose confirmation over inquiry. The people chosen reflect this trait of his.

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Long Beach, Calif.: I have to admit I'm a bit puzzled by the Scott McClellan thing: It seems to me that he carried the administration's water, the way they ordered him to, to his own personal detriment, if I'm not wrong.

And now the administration that can't get rid of D. Rumsfeld has fired him. Why don't they feel they owe him? Did he get a golden parachute or something, a la Tenet?

Jay Rosen: The case of Scott McClellan requires a quality novelist. Only then will our understanding of him improve.

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washingtonpost.com: Thank you all for joining us today.

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