Posted on 12/03/2003 5:02:07 PM PST by Drango
Media Matters
December 3, 2003
How the White House Fooled NPR
By Jeffrey A. Dvorkin
Ombudsman
National Public Radio
While most journalists were enjoying a few days respite over Thanksgiving, the White House managed to stage an impressive photo-op with the president in Baghdad. Astonishingly, it occurred without the usual presence of the White House press corps. More astonishing was the lamb-like response of many in the media to the White House sleight-of-hand.
Collusion seemed to be the order of the day, as reporters were assured that the usual "pool coverage" of the president would be in force over the Thanksgiving weekend. Here's how it happened.
'Pool' Coverage
"Pool" is the euphemism for giving a few reporters the obligation of covering for everybody else. Normally, the pool consists of a print reporter, a television reporter and crew, a radio reporter, along with the three main wire services plus a still photographer or two. All would be assigned to be with the president over a holiday period. Not that the journalists get to sit down with the first family. They are usually camped outside the presidential compound.
The pool reporters file the obligatory story based on a White House press release for all print and broadcast media. The reporters are then stationed nearby on the off chance that news might break out. Occasionally an NPR White House correspondent draws that proverbially short straw.
NPR normally would not rebroadcast the pool report unless the NPR reporter has the pool position. If not, the NPR duty reporter would re-write the pool copy and put his or her own voice on it. The presumption is that the pool reporter is a trusted and reliable journalist who would not file a story he or she did not know to be accurate.
'Where’s the President?'
While the rest of the White House press corps was in tryptophan torpor, President Bush was winging his way to Baghdad.
NPR (along with every other media outlet) reported that the president and Mrs. Bush were in Crawford, Texas according to a statement released by Deputy Press Secretary Claire Buchan. Ms. Buchan, it turns out, was also unaware of the president's true location.
NPR’s Don Gonyea reported this:
"Coming off a week in which he won a big legislative victory on Medicare reforms... the president will be joined by family... including his two daughters and his parents... for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at the 1,600- acre Prairie-Chapel ranch. The names of other guests of Mr. Bush and the first lady have not been released... but the president often entertains friends from his time in Texas politics... as well as members of his senior staff."
As a report, it was technically correct. It inferred and did not confirm that the president was spending Thanksgiving in Crawford. But the White House claimed that for reasons of national security, the White House press corps could not be told where the president was.
Fox -- Yes. CNN and NPR -- No!
If NPR appears with egg on its face, then consider CNN. It was in the normal rotation that day to provide the pool reports.
Again Don Gonyea:
"CNN was told by the White House on (Thanksgiving) that they could stand down because there would be no other news that day. Of course, later that evening Bush was en route to Baghdad with a Fox TV crew aboard."
A total of 13 media people went to Baghdad, including Fox News, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Reuters, photographers from Time and Newsweek and three wire service reporters.
No radio reporter was asked to come along, and that strikes Gonyea (and me) as inherently unfair: Personally, I'd like very much to have gone... in order to witness this event in person... but would have had real problems not being able to tell my editors that I was going AND to consult with them beforehand. The Fox TV reporter was able to tell his desk. The Washington Post reporter apparently was not, according to reports I've read. There was NO radio reporter at all among the assembled PRESS POOL on Air Force One that day either. That's another thing I have a serious problem with. When the president travels he is supposed to be accompanied by the POOL... and that POOL should include radio. Gonyea and other journalists have said that they recognize that secrecy and deception may have been the only way to safely pull this trip to Baghdad off, but, he notes:
There are legitimate questions to be raised as to whether or not this is an appropriate reason for such a deception. This was not about national security, or keeping a military operation a secret.
Ron Elving is NPR’s senior Washington editor. He agrees with Gonyea that this was a highly political and partisan event:
My own feeling is that it raises a fundamental question when the president and his staff can lie about his whereabouts. If it's supposed to be okay under special circumstances... who's to say which circumstances? This was not a matter of national security, of defending the nation or of defending the president himself. It was done to make possible a photo op. Great as PR. Sketchy as stewardship of the office.
Government and Media: Together Again?
Exactly what the media was told may have gone relatively unnoticed in the United States, but a number of overseas journalists contacted me to ask how the American media could allow this to happen without a more vigorous protest.
Typical was an e-mail from Joao Baptista Natali, a reporter with the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paolo:
For journalists outside the U.S., it seems that this fact was just an extra stone in a solid consensus wall that government and media have been building together after Sept. 11.
That consensus wall seems unconscionably high to many journalists, both inside and outside the United States. But many domestic commentators disagree. One opined that this "was the only way the president could fulfill a great presidential tradition (of) serving food to troops under the present circumstances, so the deception was justified."
More worrisome is that it also seems to evoke another less venerable but longstanding presidential tradition -- that of deceiving the press. NPR and other media need to make sure we won’t get fooled again.
Listeners can contact me at 202-513-3245 or by e-mail at ombudsman@npr.org.
If the libs want their own television and radio stations, let them pay for them themselves. LEAVE ME OUT!
All of these organizations are typical media lefties save for Fox.
When the president goes to the hottest hotspot on the planet, he becomes a target. Keeping the bad guys from finding out that he's in range is about national security. And anybody who can't figure that out is too stupid or corrupt to bother talking to.
Hmmm. The CINC is going by military jet flown by military officers to a war zone to meet with US troops and local government officials. Gee, NPR, it sounds like a military operation to me.
/john
JEFF GANNON'S WASHINGTON WITH SPECIAL GUEST SEN. CORNYN, R-TX
If flying Air Force One into a battle zone and out is not a "military operation", then what the heck is?
NPR just announced that they would not protect the security of the President of the United States going into a war zone. Hope the White House catches this so they don't include them the next time, either.
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