Letters to the Editor
Nequals1
Published Letters: 295 Editor's Choice: 6
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Oops: Forgot this - never was published on his blog comments
[Read the article: Brian Williams nominates Peggy Noonan for a Pulitzer Prize]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thursday, September 13, 2007
Journalism Under Bush's Off-The-Record Briefing Ground Rules
Open post to Brian Williams of NBC News:
In response to this from your Daily Nightly blog, in which you wrote
A number of television journalists gathered for lunch with the president at the White House today -- a practice becoming more and more common when this president has a major speech to deliver. The following is a review of my notes, and is offered here under the ground rules established by the assembled White House senior aides. Vice President Cheney attended but did not speak.
I realize that you don't publish my comments, pointed and critical as they are, but I hope that you are at least reading and considering them in the spirit in which they are offered.
Journalists are considered the 4th estate. To that end, the public relies on you (the plural you) to be assertive in pursuing clear, accurate and comprehensive information from reliable sources, and that you perform adequate fact-checking. Moreover, the public expects you to refrain from editorializing to the extent that is possible for educated humans to accomplish.
That translates into questioning and protesting such intolerable conditions as the "ground rules" that the White House is mandating for off-the-record briefings.
We, the people, supposedly elect those occupants of that branch, and we have full rights to know what the president and his cabinet (and whatever the heck the VP is calling his position in the branches these days) are doing, what his plans are, what his rationale is, what resources he is actually using, who his advisers are, etc.
It is not acceptable for NBC News, a la Tim Russert's court testimony, to assert that everything is assumed to be off the record as baseline, and that only when express permission is obtained, that sources are revealed.
To be blunt, that is un-American.
We now live in a topsy Orwellian world of doublespeak.
I am no politico, no genius and no one of import. But I highly recommend that you reacquaint yourself with Orwell's 1984 and Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here. Read some Morrow. Read some 1930's history.
Speak with your international print and television news colleagues. Try to step outside the US media market and look at it from a global point of view.
It's frightening. And you, your counterparts at ABC and CBS, and the anchors of the political commentary cable "news" shows are not meeting the public need.
What would be a good start?
In the transcripts, include the citations for all presented facts and sources.
In the NBC News Division, include professional CVs for all anchors, reporters, correspondents and news writers and researchers. Tell us your academic credentials, your professional experience, and even jobs held in other industries to help us understand your perspective.
Most important, provide full disclosure for any and all relationships between you and your subjects.
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GG: Has NBC or Williams responded yet?
[Read the article: Brian Williams' "response" to the military analyst story]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What is the status of your request for an interview with Williams or an NBC spokesflack?
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Meanwhile, two editorials over....
[Read the article: Fred Hiatt on the noble glories of occupation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It appears as though the editorial board religiously took Ambien for years and only now is emerging from a Rumplestilskin-like coma. It opines that it is shocked, SHOCKED! that the FAA covered up errors at DFW and possibly (?) other sites. Link to the offending editorial at my name. My comment there is reprised here:
The reason that this comes as a shock to the Washington Post is that your paper has studiously failed to investigate what the air traffic controllers are virtually screaming on their blogs, which includes enough sourced evidence and detail to remove the scales from your eyes. Blogs of note:
The Main Bang by John Carr, former NATCA President and recently retired controller
http://themainbang.typepad.com/blog/
Get The Flick by Don Brown, Air Traffic Controller at the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center for 25 years. He served as a Safety Representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) during the last nine years, until he retired from the FAA in 2006.
http://gettheflick.blogspot.com/
The FAA Follies by Paul Cox, a Seattle Center controller, and others - all of whom are controllers or who work in the field.
http://www.faafollies.com/
There are your primary sources and experts. Now get to work, Washington Post.
@ GG: Has NBC or Brian Williams responded yet to your request for an interview relative to General NBC Pentagon WH Propaganda-Gate?