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May 18, 2006
That al Qaeda Doesn't Believe in Transparency is a Big Reason We DoOn Tony Snow's first briefing: "One of the ways to fight and win (in a global contest of ideas) is to stand at the podium, with those words The White House behind you, and meet your misinformed critics head on." Plus: Snow scoffs at "rollback" on the HH show.At his first televised press briefing Tony Snow was friendly, telegenic, and in command, except for one very real moment when, overcome at having survived cancer, he could not go on. “He showed more emotion in 60 seconds than Scott McClellan did in three years,” wrote Howard Kurtz. McClellan’s style—a few posts ago I called it “strategic non-communication”—was the big loser in press accounts of Snow’s debut.
According to Scherer an initiation test had been passed. “Members of the press corps were thankful for warm blood. As they packed up their notebooks, they were visibly giddy, offering approbations like, ‘That was A-1’ and ‘It’s going to be fun.’” Howard Kurtz was impressed. He said Snow was more “interesting to listen to” because he tried “engaging the press in a conversation” and stayed out of “the defensive crouch.” “Yes, he split plenty of hairs,” Kurtz wrote. “But he didn’t insult the press by saying, in effect, no matter what questions you ask, I’m going to repeat the same boilerplate phrases.” Dan Froomkin disagreed. He said Snow “found new ways to insult the press.” Among them: “He misreported poll numbers when it served his purposes — then refused to answer questions about poll numbers he didn’t like.” True. He did exactly that. (Correction: no misreporting; see the top of WHB.) Snow also said he couldn’t confirm or deny that the National Security Agency was collecting data on domestic telephone calls, but then he did talk about public reaction to those reports. “Something like 64 percent of the polling was not troubled by it,” he said. Under these rules Snow does not defend the NSA program on the merits (can’t confirm its existence) but suggests Americans are sold on the merits. The beast controls itself Brewer’s list shows why the briefing can be such an advantage to the White House. The president gives a big speech on immigration; next day, the press asks 22 questions about immigration. It’s called feeding the beast. Give the reporters something to report and you’ve set their agenda. It’s true that if Karl Rove were indicted that day there might have been 30 questions on Rove, and four on immigration, speech or no speech. You can’t always control the beast. But on a normal day the beast is docile; it controls itself. The White House is doing immigration week, the press is “on” it. That Porter Goss resigned last week without explanation, calling it “one of those mysteries,” is easily forgotten. At his first (untelevised) press gaggle, May 12, Snow said that “rumors of the televised briefings demise are greatly exaggerated.” Those weren’t rumors. On April 30, his boss, chief of staff Joshua Bolter, told Fox News that dropping the midday televised briefing should be on the table. “I haven’t made any decisions,” Snow said Friday. He repeated this Tuesday. The ritual will continue for now. If there are any changes “I will do that in full consultation with you,” he told the press. He also said he didn’t think the televised briefings were “something that you can undo.” I disagree with that. All it takes is a president with the will to undo and they’re done. In my view there should be both televised and untelevised briefings. But mainly there should be more briefings: a full schedule every day, and the staff to make it happen since Snow cannot do them all. A contest for world opinion Rather than cutting back on the interlocutors’ space, the Bush Administration should be expanding it outward to take in more interlocutors— more Q’s, more A’s, from more people and more interests. For if there really is a Global War on Terror and it’s being led from the White House, then the people there are engaged in a contest for world opinion. The National Security Strategy Bush proclaimed in 2002 says just that: “We will also wage a war of ideas to win the battle against international terrorism.” You don’t wage a war of ideas with Scott McClellan as one of your big guns. But with Tony Snow…? Maybe. Last year Donald Rumsfeld offered this assessment of the war in Iraq: The only way we can lose this is if we lack political will to see it through. The terrorists, the violent terrorists, the enemies of the Iraqi people and the legitimate Iraqi government and the new Iraqi constitution, they know that. They know precisely that their battle is not in Iraq. Their battle is here in the United States. They have media committees, they calculate how they can have the greatest impact on the media in the world, and they are very skillful at it and we’re not. Well, if our enemies are having greater effect on “the media in the world,” as Mr. Rumsfeld said, that argues for trying something different— really different. Like reverse course different. My suggestion: the White House should be answering lots of people’s questions— in fact, many more questions from all over the world. One of the ways to fight and win (in a contest of ideas) is to stand at the podium, with those words The White House behind you, and meet your misinformed critics head on, while talking sense to those—in the room, out in the country, around the world—who are fair and open-minded. Taking Bush’s case to the world No decision yet on whether to drop the briefings? If he’s a believer, Tony Snow should be taking Bush’s case to the world, and seeking opportunities to make that case. That means more briefings. Not cutting back but building on. Snow is the head of an operation. That operation includes able assistants. There are extremely competent people across the government, outside of Snow’s office, who in their areas of knowledge can also brief the press, answer critics, and bring policy to life. I’d go with two-person teams: one briefer pulled from the government itself (someone in the line of duty for the United States) and the other a deputy press secretary working for Snow. Here’s a schedule I drew up: 8:00 AM… Televised Briefing in Arabic (For journalists from the Muslim world and the Arabic speaking press. You make the evening news in Cairo and Baghdad that night, and the newspapers the next day.) During his debut Snow reminded Helen Thomas that there’s a war on terror. “But al Qaeda doesn’t believe in transparency,” he added. “What al Qaeda believes in is mayhem.” There’s two ways to read that. In one, the United States cannot afford its earlier levels of transparency because it has to defeat al Qaeda, which doesn’t have to worry about such things. I believe this logic helped justify the policy of rollback— back ‘em off, starve ‘em down, and drive up their negatives. The other read cuts an opposite way: al Qaeda doesn’t believe in transparency and that’s a big reason we do. We know al Qaeda can’t answer the questions people have. We know that we can. Never will Qadea’s leaders stand before the cameras and take the heat. But we do that every day, eight times a day, fielding questions from all over the world. After Matter: Notes, reactions & links… Here’s the transcript of my live Q and A at washingtonpost.com, May 18. Main topics were the Bush White House and the press, including Tony Snow’s debut. Two highlights: Scott McClellan was Agnew at the podium. Or you will if you read the thing. Also there’s… 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. Tim Schmoyer (Sisyphus) comments on this post: OldThink at PressThink… He’s not impressed. Rosen’s suggestion sounds good in the abstract, and there’s something to be said from a public relations standpoint about answering critics and bringing a policy “to life.” From a practical point of view, however, message management has a way of breaking down when you add so much to the mix. Rarely is there room on the national news agenda for more than a couple large stories each day, and dispersing the administration’s focus each day seems to risk dispersing the message. If, the day after President Bush delivers a national address on immigration, you have eight different briefings with eight different briefers, that is a certain recipe for confusion. Let’s put it this way: Has the Bush Administration actually behaved like it’s in a war of ideas? That is the question my suggestion was intended to raise. My answer is: no way. Terry Mattingly at GetReligion, a blog about the press and religion, considers my suggestions. “The hard part would be deciding who would be left out. Obviously, Richard Ostling of the Associated Press gets in. Ditto for someone from Catholic News Service and Baptist Press. Ditto for the likes of World and Christianity Today. Is the key question whether someone carries a mainstream press card? That would narrow the field too much… I think that a ‘God room’ would ask some very different and, in some ways, very tough questions. Rollback news flash! “Leftist overthink,” and nothing to worry about, says Snow. On his radio program yesterday, Hugh Hewitt interviewed Tony Snow and asked him about a theory of mine. (Transcript.) HH:: One of the lead bloggers of the left, Jay Rosen, up at New York University, who writes at PressThink, has argued that this Adminsitration is intent on “rollback,” the delegitimzation of the White House press corps and main stream media generally, and part of that was to deny the spokespeople and including the number one spokesperson, in this case you, the ability to reply effectively, is that just sort of leftist overthink? Well, thanks. That a press secretary can’t tell reporters everything because there are secrets of state that are not to be divulged is true—and obvious—and, yes, it has always has been thus. But this has nothing to do with rollback, as I have discussed it. (Also see Austin Bay’s guest post at PressThink.) So I can’t glean anything from Snow’s reply. It’s a bromide. Here’s what Hewitt should have asked him: Vice President Cheney has said that after Watergate and Vietnam the executive branch saw its perogatives trimmed. He thinks it got hemmed in by other institutions and their oversight demands. Do you think the news media is one of those institutions from which the White House has to regain lost powers? Maybe next interview. Hewitt asked Snow about paying attention to blogs. Snow said: TS: Well, we’re in the process of designating people to be…to sort of do blog work, because that is one of the things that I’m doing here, at sort of the press office, is to get us up on the new media. And so I still haven’t finished that task, but I’m going to start designating people to keep an eye out on certain blogs, so we can figure out an effective strategy… blogs are useful not only for information, but also for various analysis. You get it into the bloodstream, and boom. People start linking all across the universe, and it’s like one of those pictures of a crack in the ice. It just spiderwebs everywhere.
Posted by Jay Rosen at May 18, 2006 1:20 AM
Comments
8:00 AM… Televised briefing in Arabic Are you urging Tony to dive into a turf fight with Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes? Posted by: nedu at May 18, 2006 4:00 AM | Permalink Jay. You are thinking of some al Q guy at a podium answering Dana Priest's question about why the US is so awful. That's "taking the heat". Snow was talking about operational security. Why conflate the two? Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 18, 2006 7:29 AM | Permalink Richard Aubrey is right. Snow was discussing transparency in discussing classified intelligence. He convincingly argued that we cannot be transparent about intelligence because we're in a war. You've removed the quote from its context in a substantial way, in my opinion. Even if he was talking about classified intelligence -- an extreme-case red herring in a discussion of everyday openness to the press -- Jay's point remains valid. If your belief in the power of your principles is as strong as this admin's is then more communication not less would seem to be an easy call. I think that's where the Snow appointment is coming from -- even though it's more of a co-opt-em play so far than an actual give-em-more-info play. Posted by: D. Longobardi at May 18, 2006 10:54 AM | Permalink Re: Response to question on domestic telephone call number issue: Snow didn't confirm or deny it, but he said about two-thirds of the country approve of it. How is this a puzzle? The MSM have convinced a good many people it exists. Would the MSM lie? It must be true. Being true, the next question is what people think about it. 65% like the idea. It could also be a warning. If it proves to be true, by virtue of administration acknowledgment, don't expect to use it to bang Bush. Two thirds of the population think it's a good idea. Ditto any similar program which may come to light. BTW. See "Gates of Vienna" blog for the article starting out with "MSM Scrapings...." It compares two reports of Chavez' ponderings about selling his F16 fleet. One of them is the way it ought to be done. And suggestions about how the MSM can do it. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 18, 2006 10:58 AM | Permalink Robin. Let's wait until, as I specified, she's talking to an al Q press spokesman. The last big deal she got was how awful the US is--the secret prisons. Now. Picture her asking this hypothetical al Q guy. "How awful are the secret prisons?" Let's presume somebody asked the al Q spokesperson, "What about the decapitations?" "A CIA and Mossad plot to smear Islam, the religion of peace." Report: "al Q says decapitations are Mossad/CIA plot." No followup. No independent investigation.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 18, 2006 11:29 AM | Permalink Who's Being Rolled?, or, "Old Media" vs "New Media" Tony Snow: Well, we’re in the process of designating people to be to sort of do blog work, because that is one of the things that I’m doing here, at sort of the press office, is to get us up on the new media....I’m going to start designating people to keep an eye out on certain blogs, so we can figure out an effective strategy....You get it into the bloodstream, and boom. People start linking all across the universe, and it’s like one of those pictures of a crack in the ice. It just spiderwebs everywhere. Jay: Rather than cutting back on the interlocutors’ space, the Bush Administration should be expanding it outward to take in more interlocutors— more Q’s, more A’s, from more people and more interests. It will be interesting to see if the White House implements this sort of outward-expanding strategy on-line, even if they don't go with your suggestion of more press briefings. Last week, Hugh Hewitt was urging Donald Rumsfeld to adopt a similar "new media" strategy at the Pentagon: Hugh Hewitt: Are the pressers like the sort you just concluded, ten minute interviews and an occasional Sunday show, sufficient for you and the military to get across not only the good news, but the bad news, the challenges, the strategy? Are you using last war techniques in the new war? Donald Rumsfeld: To a certain extent, we are still using the old 20th century techniques. And we're trying to figure them out and adjust them, and adapt them to the 21st Century. But it's painfully slow. People get set in their ways, and it's a difficult thing to do. We do provide, the Pentagon does, an enormous amount of information. There's someone briefing at the Pentagon, somewhere in the world, every day. And there are people providing information to people in a variety of different ways: through our website, through the Pentagon channel, through radio and television and print media. But it is still basically, I would guess, 80% 20th Century, and maybe 20% 21st Century. My guess is that Hewitt and Snow would claim that there is no "rollback", just a shifting of emphasis from "old media" to "new media" channels of communication. I suppose there's an element of truth (truthiness?) to that, but it's not the whole story.
Posted by: Mike at May 18, 2006 11:43 AM | Permalink Robin. Aren't real? Depends on who you talk to. The EU says they have no evidence of secret prisons. But can you show me where I said we shouldn't talk about anything? Go ahead. Start right in. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 18, 2006 11:47 AM | Permalink Mr. Rosen, I think that you are giving too much attention to superficial changes. I guess it's possible that Bolten and Snow will change how the WH interacts with the press, and by extension, the public. But I wouldn't put any wagers on it. This WH does not change, or does not substantively change anyway. PR changes, sure, but no policy changes. They count on the fact that the topics change by the day and by the week. As you have pointed out, not too many questions about Goss have been asked or answered. We could all make a list of questions that have never been answered, just ignored until the press stops asking. (Just what was Gannon/Guckert doing in there, anyway?) Putting someone at the podium who looks and speaks better than McClellan will not lead to an actual difference in information and interaction, is my prediction. Thanks. Completely OT but Barlett & Steele laid off Or is the media's puny economic health rollback from another direction? Posted by: Dave McLemore at May 18, 2006 12:34 PM | Permalink You already know the WH briefings are verbal press handouts. They discuss the stuff the WH wants to discuss. They answer questions the way the WH wants them answered. Why complain about the WH not being asked, and not commenting on, Goss' retirement? What else did you expect. Try some reporting. It's more worthy of adults. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 18, 2006 1:07 PM | Permalink Good ideas, Jay. Sounds like the kind of information strategies that helped win past conflicts. Imagine if this Administration had not chosen to run the country using only 50% of its CPU. Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 18, 2006 1:47 PM | Permalink Unfortunately, I'm afraid the majority of the "working" press is a sucker for the sentimentality that so impressed Howard Kurtz, that the issue of cancer made Snow cry, than is informed and responsible enough to be offended like Froomkin understandably was when Snow dished out more disinformation. The press's test of White House process seems to have much more to do with soap opera authenticity than political and policy credibility. Why does "Do we like him or not?" seem to be a higher journalistic imperative than "Is he telling the truth or not and what is it?" I can understand why Snow's "humanity" would make him less irritating to work with. But why do I get the feeling that in the mind of many of these reporters being personable appears to make Snow a better, more credible, source? Is disinformation from Snow "truthier" because he cried during the press conference in which he passed it on? Is it that difficult to draw a distinction between charisma, salesmanship, and accuracy? I can't help but feel the surge of press narcissism kicking back into gear here as an obstacle to news that any sentient White House can typically play like a fiddle. It's like they've agreed Neil Diamond's "Play Me" is their theme song and they're determined to live down to it. I've read accounts of the US press from the 1870s where a British observer (Herbert Spencer in this case) complained about the cult of personal authenticity in US journalism and how it seems to systematically trump substance. Why is this so? Is there nothing we can do about it? Isn't this an absolutely core element of PressThink dogma that must be displaced before we might recover any hope of democratic debate? This element of PressThink was the key to Reagan popularity amidst one debacle in governance after another. Is there any hope of distracting the press from the People magazine model they have taken as their mission toward some passing concern with real news on occasion? Why does Howard Kurtz think who's in the clique is news? Posted by: Mark Anderson at May 18, 2006 2:10 PM | Permalink I think that another healthy improvement would be not using "tar baby". Aunt Jemima, coon and spade might play a little better to his audience. Posted by: Derrick at May 18, 2006 3:23 PM | Permalink My complaint about Jay's use of the "transparency" quote notwithstanding, I think his ideas on expanding the communications operation are good -- especially the idea for an Arabic-language briefing. One of the biggest mistakes this vile One Party Republican regime has made is to shut the folks who are best at crosscultural outreach and understanding out of policymaking and decisionmaking altogether, and leave the winning of the hearts and minds of foreigners to rednecks like Karen Hughes. Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 18, 2006 3:38 PM | Permalink Well, let's see a Patterico post in reply! This post was mostly addressed to the right side of the blogosphere anyway, which might find it worth debating whether more communication is good in the GWOT. I don't think the liberal sites will be much interested. So far we have links from Romenesko, Fishbowl DC, White House Briefing, CBS Public Eye, Hugh Hewitt, Real Clear Politics, Instapundit. No one has noticed yet that my scheme for all-day briefings dilutes the role of the "famous MSM" from 100 percent of the briefing audiences to 25. Mr. Rosen: I finally got around to reading your Washington Post Q&A from earlier today. I have to take exception with your assertion Tony Snow’s tearful performance on Tuesday was spontaneous, not faked. Maybe you’re just too embedded in the culture to notice, but there were two clues that raised my suspicions. First it was the raised hand gesture (clearly done to elicit an emotion from the viewer), and when he managed to look up he did so directly into the camera. Why did he not seek out the person who asked him the question about his yellow bracelet? It was a startling moment--not because of his emotion, but because he seemed to consciously make an effort to search out the camera lens and gaze into it with piteous, moist eyes. I’m a reasonably empathic person, and am moved by genuine displays of emotion. But this just didn’t feel right. Remember, Tony Snow is a veteran television personality, well-practiced in his craft. Honestly, I was put off by his inability to contain his emotions. I would have to agree with Mr. Anderson's comment above. The fact Tony Snow's tears became the primary focus of reporting on this press conference says much about the sad state of journalism today. Posted by: Jean at May 18, 2006 4:07 PM | Permalink I think the irony here is that some people are trying to make a tar baby out of "tar baby." The argument, of course, is that the term "tar baby" is racist because by some people (unspecified -- but you know: "them") have used it in a racist way. As The Maven's Word of the Day acknowledges, this leads some to suggest that the term should not be used at all in the interests of sensitivity. But is that the way we want our language to be directed? The irony here is that The Tar Baby is an American folk tale with an African origin, and it's a clever analogy with a rich, relevant meaning. Consider The folktale achieved currency in the United States in written form in one of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories, a collection of stories based on African-American folklore, narrated by the fictional Uncle Remus, a former slave. In the story "Tar-Baby," the character Brer Fox makes a doll out of tar, which he places by the road to entrap his enemy Brer Rabbit. Brer Rabbit talks to the doll, and when it doesn't answer, he hits it, and gets stuck in the tar. The more he struggles with it, the more he is entangled in it. What this definition fails to explain is what makes this entire situation so ironic: It is the act of struggling with the tar baby that defeats us. We had a similar flap some years back over the word "niggardly," and it lead some writers to just drop it from their vocabularies because the fallout wasn't worth the trouble. It wasn't much of an issue for me, since niggardly wasn't a word I'd ever used much anyway, but "tar baby" is so expressive of a particular human situation that I don't want to just give it up because "somebody" says that "somebody" uses it as a racial slur. I don't want to eat "Saltine Wheat Thins" just because "cracker" has a racial connotation. And trying to hang a racially insensitive label on Snow because he used the term properly is exactly the kind of shallow, "gotcha" quest that so damaged press credibility in the first place. Posted by: Daniel Conover at May 18, 2006 4:17 PM | Permalink I like some of this, but I wouldn't go for the all day briefings. The press is often more intent on finding ways to embarrass the administration than on simply reporting the news, which is why there are so many "When did you stop beating your wife?" questions. If the briefers make a mistake or have incomplet information, the whole administration gets accused of dishonesty and cover up. If the press would quit reporting leaks all the time, it might be justified, but that's not going to happen. BTW, I think your "rollback" theory is paranoid. I've been impressed by Bush's lack of hostility toward the press, when it is richly deserved. Bush just doesn't think that way. Nor does he understand the need for public relations, which is why Scott McClellan has been there so long. If the President wanted rollback he wouldn't have appointed Tony Snow. Posted by: AST at May 18, 2006 4:35 PM | Permalink Jay, how many Qs did you get on Tar Baby (the outrage of the moment) today? Here's Michael Fletcher with Tar Bay: Henly, Tex.: I have no investment in defending a right-wing ideologue like Tony Snow, but his reference to the story of the Tar Baby is totally without racial overtones, as anyone who knows the Tar Baby fable is well aware. Lots of Q's on tar baby, jaw. "Nor does he understand the need for public relations, which is why Scott McClellan has been there so long." Lemme guess: Bush doesn't understand the need for public relations because he's just so genuine. It doesn't occur to him that he would need someone like that. Would that be your drift? It's hard to explain McClellan--up there for three years!--without rollback or something similar, and you failed AST. Bush is competent enough to pull off regime change in the Middle East, and win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, but not competent enough to see that McClellan was hurting him? Just seems implausible. "If the President wanted rollback he wouldn't have appointed Tony Snow." My view: He looked around and realized where Rollback got him, and then appointed Tony Snow hoping that would fix it without need for any agonizing re-appraisal. The staff was more than into that. Jay Rosen: "He looked around and realized where Rollback got him ..." Nah. Looked around, sure. Replaced Card with Bolton and moved Rove back into political advisor. He's a decider-delegator, right? I think Snow replacing McClellan was a second order effect. "Tar Baby" clearly wasn't intended as a racial slur, nor did it have any racial undertone in this case. It's a red herring. But look at the resonance. That's the stuff that press secretaries really need to watch out for -- accidentally saying something that will hum the wrong way -- like "heck of a job, Brownie." Perhaps that was part of McClellan's approach to the job: If you can't be sure you're not going to let slip something stupid, don't say anything at all. What would have been McClellan's cleanup for having let "tar baby" slip? "What you are asking about, I have already addressed what you are asking about. And I am not going to -- I am not going to comment on it any further. I understand what you are trying to do, and I'm not going to engage in any wordgaming with you." Treat the whole administration-press dynamic as a tar baby, and avoid it by not going anywhere near it. Speaking of which, Bush gave the much-vilified David Gregory an interview at the border today ... caught the end of it in a brief moment of news before Chris Matthews-NBC-Vivendi-Universal Pictures slipped into full-blown Da Vinci Code synergistic programming by interviewing film critics in Cannes from Opus Dei's NYC headquarters ... (!) Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 18, 2006 6:17 PM | Permalink Perhaps the President really doesn't care what the what the White House press corps thinks of him or how they portray him; as Steve Lovelady pointed out a year or so ago on this blog, the WH Press Corps are basically stenographers and havent broken a story in 30 years. The real action is in other sectors of government the President, or any administration for that matter, doesn't or can't control. My impression is that President Bush really doesnt care about PR or polls, and the appointment of Snow is more to shore up the republican base for the next couple of years. Posted by: RogerA at May 18, 2006 6:33 PM | Permalink Richard -- Da Vinci is produced by Columbia, owned by SONY, not Universal, owned by NBC -- Andrew Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at May 18, 2006 6:54 PM | Permalink Maybe next interview. Hewitt asked Snow about paying attention to blogs. even better would be if Snow allowed himself to be "interviewed" by Jay in one of his "email" exchanges that he publishes occassionally. Expecting anything of value to come from an interview conducted by Hewitt (regardless of the interviewee) is a waste of time. *************** Steve --- OT response, but as someone who lives in Philadelphia and read "America: What Went Wrong" as it was serialized, I'm simply shocked and appalled that Time Inc. got rid of Barlett and Steele. Their work has crystalized what people perceive, but can't quite put into words. I remember when AWWW was first published in the Inky, everyone at work (ok, it was UofP...so its not that much of a surprise) was talking about it. I don't believe, however, that they will be spending any time in the unemploymentt line. Any paper that wants an instant increase in its standing and credibility will be snatching them up --- I even see a bidding war! :) (maybe Jay could do a piece on this) ************** Re: Snow -- Froomkin was right, and the praise being given to Snow is a demonstration of the DC press corp's obsession with trivialities over substance. The fact that Tony Snow is a far more engaging bullshitter than McClellan shouldn't make a difference---but apparently it will. ******************* Here’s a schedule I drew up Dr. Rosen, there is a job waiting for you in the Feingold administration :) Paul, Bartlett and Steele, few newspapers or magazine can afford to hire reporters and let them go work on one story for 2 years. The Inquirer in the end couldn't afford Barlett and Steele, right Steve? These guys will not a hard time finding a job, but it will be not a bidding war, but how much a cut in salary they are willing to take. What makes Waas so good is his autonomy. He doesn't have daily, weekly or even monthly stories he has to churn out. OK students, settle down. Our professor, Dr Rosen, is a very clever man, but a little impatient. What is the motive behind his elaborate proposal for all-day briefings by the White House (besides using it to apply for a job in a Feingold Administration)? It is, as he says, “mostly addressed to the right side of the blogosphere.” Conservative critics tend to be exasperated by the commanding heights from which the MSM dominate the national discourse with their apparent anti-Bush bias. If the White House press office were to treat the MSM merely as one outlet among many -- side-by-side with the Arab media, the citizen’s media, the faith-based media, the War on Terrorism media and so on -- their distortions of our President’s policy and achievements would be mitigated. Yet there is a corollary to having the White House press office address such divergent media types simultaneously. The office would have to respond to the agendas of all those different journalists rather than having the potential to set a centralized agenda itself. At CBS’ Public Eye, Vaughn Ververs noticed this pitfall: “From a practical point of view, however, message management has a way of breaking down when you add so much to the mix.” Ververs still sees Tony Snow’s job as enforcing message management not responding to a dialogue initiated by a heterogeneous, non-MSM-dominated, gaggle of journalists. The professor, it seems, was attempting to invite conservatives into a realistic debate of the trade-off… …Keep the power of the White House to manage the message, a power that, like it or not, is dependent on dissemination through MainStreamMedia… …Or defang the MainStreamMedia once and for all by diluting the attention you give them, even at the cost of relinquishing any ambition at message management. But, as I said, the professor is man of little patience. That debate did not start up right away, so within two hours he spilled the beans: “No one has noticed yet that my scheme for all-day briefings dilutes the role of the ‘famous MSM’ from 100 percent of the briefing audiences to 25.” We notice now. Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at May 18, 2006 7:32 PM | Permalink AT: Da Vinci is produced by Columbia, owned by SONY, not Universal, owned by NBC (Oops. Thanks for the correction. Feeling foolish now.) Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 18, 2006 7:42 PM | Permalink We have comments from Patterico, though his first words were Richard Aubrey is right. To round it out, we need mikekoshi. Andrew Tyndall: "... set a centralized agenda ..." Jay Rosen: "... stand at the podium, with those words The White House behind you ..." Industrial age thinking. Symmetric. A hub at the podium with conduits to receivers. Exactly why rollback couldn't, and can't, be maintained from the centralized podium. Why "assymetric" is the new "paradigm" - gawd I hate those words. The medium isn't the message, the message is a matrix. If I were the White House, I'm not sure I'd bite. As soon as you had four or five different spokespeople on camera, day after day, day after day, once in a while someone's going to misunderstand his guidance, his role, or come off message, or mistate something. Then the brachiators will howl and wail and say, "see! The Administration is incompetent!" and it won't matter what the facts are. And THAT will be the story, rather than the substance of the story. Metajournalism, like pop, will eat itself. It obviously doesn't matter what the facts are now, since the sainted Helen Thomas, who should have retired a decade ago, is too mind-addled now to comprehend the difference between wiretapping and collecting phone numbers. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 18, 2006 8:06 PM | Permalink Bartlett and Steele? Hmmm...The same guys who reported a HUGE increase in income during the 1980s among those with incomes of 1 million dollars or more, compared that with more modest increases in incomes among those with lower incomes, and used that as an indication of how the rich were getting over. Well, that's just not the case. The two fundamentally misunderstand tax law and its incentive effect on income. For people in high tax brackets (I know, it's hard for journos to wrap their heads around the idea, but there ARE tax brackets higher than yours) the name of the game is NOT to report income - especially in the 1970s and even into the 1980s, because the top marginal tax brackets were so high. So what you had in the 1980s was billions and billions of dollars from high net worth individuals sitting in limited partnerships, overseas trusts, leveraged passive activity loss generators (leveraged so you could actually lose MORE than you put into the investment, and use the paper losses to offset passive activity gains) and a variety of other tax shelters. The upshot was they WERE getting over, since they didn't have to report this stuff as income - what income they had could be written off against losses, and they really could avoid a lot of tax. The W-2 working stiff, until Reagan, really had almost nothing. Maybe an IRA at 500 bucks a year. Two things happened: 1.) The birth of the 401(k) as we know it. This enabled working stiffs to defer taxes on a portion of their earnings until retirement. This was a Godsend to workers in many ways - though some on the left say the birth of the 401(k) sounded the death knell for traditional pension plans. Their argument has some merit (though a global economy ensures much the same result), but in either case, the upshot was that reported incomes for the middle class was depressed, in the short run. (This was essentially a long-term loan, natch. The taxes were deferred, not canceled. The government makes up its shortfall when workers take their distributions and pay income tax, plus or minus any changes in their effective tax rate). 2. Most significantly for the purposes of this discussion, Congress passed a HUGE tax reform bill in 1986. One of the deliberate effects of this tax bill was the closing of a variety of loopholes and tax shelters that enabled the very rich to avoid paying income taxes. As a result, billions and billions of dollars were then either rendered taxable - boosting reported incomes significantly - or pulled out of these investments, and therefore either declared as income or a short-or-long-term capital gain, depending on the structure, whether it's a pass-through entity, whether it was double taxed as a C-corporation, etc. Either way, the reported incomes of the upper crust would have shot up by a HUGE amount after 1986 - which is exactly what we see in Bartlett and Steele's numbers. Now, this isn't something I'd expect most news guys would grasp just falling off the turnip truck. But an economics/business editor should have had a clue: "Hey, guys, are we talking reported incomes, or wealth increases here?" But Bartlett and Steele screwed the pooch on that one. It's not the amount of income that serves as a measure of whether the rich are really getting richer. It's the amount that's NOT income. The rich are fighting tooth and nail NOT to have income. In other words, the Zen-like superior reporter should be digging listening for the dog that doesn't bark. Because this one threw those guys way off the scent. Could have used a sharper editor, eh, Steve? Editors should at least hire reporters who grasp tax policy a little better. In fairness to them, I might have missed it as a cub Time Inc. reporter. But not now. (Disclosure: Happen to be finishing a course on tax planning at the moment. Maybe I'll hit up Time. I hear there's a vacancy.) Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 18, 2006 9:24 PM | Permalink Yeah. I recall, back in the Eighties, a field near mine went south pretty quick. It was sell tax breaks--not really, just the vehicles which qualified--of which there were huge numbers. Posted by: RIchard Aubrey at May 18, 2006 9:50 PM | Permalink John Jay. I think Jason is telling us about the level of competence Time's people show. Anyway, Iraqpundit has an interesting analysis of the WaPo using and being used by the Iraqi interior minister. If the reporter were a better reporter--she'd probably be working elsewhere. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 18, 2006 10:57 PM | Permalink I think this is a bit of a teaser: My suggestion: the White House should be answering lots of people’s questions— in fact, many more questions from all over the world. One of the ways to fight and win (in a contest of ideas) is to stand at the podium, with those words The White House behind you, and meet your misinformed critics head on, while talking sense to those—in the room, out in the country, around the world—who are fair and open-minded. What good would that do? The White House will just open itself up for this question and this question to be asked ten different ways by reporters that may be somewhat less sympathetic to US foreign policy than John Harris or Brit Hume, for example. What can one possibly say that is fair and open-minded in these situations? It will puncture the 'contest of ideas' balloon quicker than one can say 'Tony Snow'. Posted by: village idiot at May 18, 2006 11:04 PM | Permalink Wow, Jay -- you're really funny. Of course, if you can't talk on the merits, you have to be funny. What's even funnier is I DID report on tax and investing issues for Time, Inc as a staff reporter for three years, though I did so within the Fortune Group, not for Time itself. And when the magazine I worked for closed its doors, some of us DID transfer to Time. I transferred to Ramadi. Long story. But your ad hominem fizzles nevertheless. Besides, I'm a financial reporter taking coursework on my own time and at my own expense. You're going to belittle me because of that? Shows how ignorant you are. You should be worried about the reporters who AREN'T doing that in their beats, not the ones who are. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 18, 2006 11:08 PM | Permalink Actually, I was talking about the level of competence the Philadelphia Inquirer show. Wow. That's a lot of sloppy thinking. Granted, the statute of limitations has expired on this one. Nevertheless, Steve just got through publicly lionizing these two. Steve, was this on your watch? P.S. - He's a lefty, and writes occasionally for the Nation last I looked. But the best piece of financial reporting I've ever seen still comes from William Greider: Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 18, 2006 11:13 PM | Permalink Are you telling us that you do not worship at the feet of Amity Shlaes, Jason?;-) Posted by: village idiot at May 18, 2006 11:24 PM | Permalink "Yet there is a corollary to having the White House press office address such divergent media types simultaneously. The office would have to respond to the agendas of all those different journalists rather than having the potential to set a centralized agenda itself." - Tyndall, above. Perceptive. Particularly regarding the fact that journalists have agendas, which I believe are, at least occasionally, ideological or political ones. I think that while more communication from this White House is necessary (especially when information warfare is one weapon employed by our enemies), more Q and A with its ideological adversaries doesn't seem productive at this point. Posted by: Trained Auditor at May 19, 2006 12:02 AM | Permalink Nah. I know who she is, but have never read her stuff, that I can recall. Looking for her on the Web, I'm not seeing much that's recent. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 19, 2006 1:15 AM | Permalink Dan Froomkin disagreed. He said Snow “found new ways to insult the press.” Among them: “He misreported poll numbers when it served his purposes — then refused to answer questions about poll numbers he didn’t like.” True. He did exactly that. Not true. Froomkin was wrong, not Snow. Froomkin admitted that today. He also was one of the bozos complaining about the use of "tar baby". So Snow did not do exactly that, and now Uncle Remus is not politically correct. No wonder Disney never re-released "Song of the South". Posted by: walt at May 19, 2006 1:24 AM | Permalink "I've read accounts of the US press from the 1870s where a British observer (Herbert Spencer in this case) complained about the cult of personal authenticity in US journalism and how it seems to systematically trump substance." The real problem is "substance" -- facts are boring. What's interesting is the future, speculative analysis. Most "news" is not about what did happen, but about what the reporter or the person being quoted thinks will happen. News reporting is a business; it's audience is people who read the news infotainment; customers are more interested in (easy) people and personalities, and their ideas, rather than too many facts. The suggestions to open up to more Q & A seem excellent; less control of the message, more facts to support the Admin's messages. Including more analysis of news coverage, and whether or not the news is helping Al Qaeda, as the Vietnam news helped the N. Vietnamese. Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at May 19, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink Evasiveness, despite emotiveness, is still the main point of concern. Granted every administration has secreted information, but to a certain extent isn't it's the press's job to ferret out the unnecessary secrets that might actually benefit a public airing (corruption, civil right degregation, etc.)? The thing that concerned me about Snow was the insistent, "can't confirm or deny", repeated over and over and over. Sure, he may have a friendlier demeanor, but if the end-message is the same, what face does it matter that it wears? I heard no substance, information-wise, gathered from the interaction with the new face on the podium. So what if he makes eye-contact. So do the shysters at the carnival. Posted by: anorpheus at May 19, 2006 8:52 AM | Permalink What good would that do? The White House will just open itself up for this question and this question to be asked ten different ways by reporters that may be somewhat less sympathetic to US foreign policy than John Harris or Brit Hume, for example. Good point, VI. Jay's suggestions about multiple briefings, all day, for different venues, is a new model of press management, predicated on the failure of Rollback to win the war of ideas -- either at home or abroad. The new model seems to be based on the premise that the message that the President of the United States wants to convey is substantive, and that the information that the President of the United States means to impart is actually information. Rather than a purposeful and ill-advised lack thereof. In other words, it assumes that if you are trying to win the war of ideas, you are actually fighting it with ideas, not hollow slogans and rhetorical stonewalls. Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 19, 2006 10:52 AM | Permalink Simon says: "In other words, it assumes that if you are trying to win the war of ideas, you are actually fighting it with ideas, not hollow slogans and rhetorical stonewalls." And in a republican democracy, we have every right to expect our leaders to have those ideas and to want to express them.
Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at May 19, 2006 10:59 AM | Permalink Richard B. Simon: In other words, it assumes that if you are trying to win the war of ideas, you are actually fighting it with ideas, not hollow slogans and rhetorical stonewalls. You mean a noetic field that chastises the press for public conversation based on soundbites and bumpersticker reasons? A noetic field that abhors excessive reductivism, objectivism, and twisting information to fit the constraints of an inverted pyramid container of specified inches/minutes between ads? Is that what you mean? You mean [A] a noetic field that chastises the press for public conversation based on soundbites and bumpersticker reasons? [B] A noetic field that abhors excessive reductivism, objectivism, and twisting information to fit the constraints of an inverted pyramid container of specified inches/minutes between ads? (emph. added) Yes, that too. The idea that the inverted pyramid itself is a distortion is pretty deconstructionist, but it makes sense. I'm not sure I understand your charge against "objectivism" -- unless it's that the press/media feigns objectivism when "true" objectivity is not possible. I think the Internet model is going a long way toward correcting the flaws of top-down journalism -- of which TV is the worst. Provide the transcript and access to an unlimited amount of commentary and additional matter. But you have to know how to do it -- and have the time. And in a republican democracy, we have every right to expect our leaders to have those ideas and to want to express them. In fact, our republican democracy dies without them, and without the ability to convey them to a people that understands them.
Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 19, 2006 11:24 AM | Permalink Well, gee Jason, maybe Barlett and Steele should give back the two Pulitizers ... the two national magazine awards ... and all the copies the book sold when it was # 1 on the paperback bestsellers list for six months. But I don't think they will. Me, if I were Barlett, I'd take a deep breath and a long break. Hell, the guy is 69 years old, and Steele is 63, and the word "vacation" has never been in either of their vocabularies. But I'm told the job offers and the writing contracts are already piling up, so I'm guessing it won't be quite so easy to lead the big hoss to pasture. And, yes, all that did happen on my watch. And, as I wrote at CJR Daily, it was pure pleasure every step of the way. If that's my 15 minutes of fame and/or infamy, I'll take it. Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 19, 2006 11:30 AM | Permalink They were important. Maybe they will be again. I think it's worth pointing out that in the scheme I suggested, one of the purposes is bringing new "press" populations into the White House. How do we know what the dialogue would be like with a laser-like focus on the global war on terror (GWOT in Administration dialect), with the religious press worldwide, with the bloggers. Arab speakers? The point is to make a dead ritual come alive, and get a win-win, a better informed press and population, a White House that is more fully and fairly represented. It's silly to claim you know what would happen. Also: what if the White House had to choose between being more effective and being fully in control? Think about that one.... I have to go because I am giving a luncheon talk to students with the World Journalism Institute, people who want more devout Christians in newsrooms. Topic: what are journalists for, and why do we need them? Please ask them: Devout by whose Christian standards? Roman Catholic? Methodist? Southern Baptist? The Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church or the ELCA? The Four-Square Gospel Church? Not to mention that we've written off the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc. I guess we don't need more of them. I'm leery of groups that say they want more Christians or more conservatives or more soldiers in the newsroom. (Yes, Jason, there are vets out there who wouldn't known an M-249 from a potato peeler. Or whose idea of tactics is getting through Sports to get more coffee.) Usually the advocates mean more (fill in the blank) that think exactly as I do, but not like the other (blanks.) I'm all for diversity in the newsroom - the more the merrier. But it should be soldiers/conservatives/liberals/people religious et al who are curious, can write well and do so on deadline. And whose BS meters are well-tuned. Posted by: Dave McLemore at May 19, 2006 12:49 PM | Permalink ... one of the purposes is bringing new "press" populations into the White House. Run away, run away! Decentralize and disintermediate information. Fly, be free! Aggregate at the edge. The point is to make a dead ritual come alive ... Dead rituals die for a reason. Let dead rituals lie. Dave, regardless of what I've said, you don't need those people in the newsroom. It would be nice, but they have to think of their social standards. The fallback position would be for a reporter to keep a rolodex of people with the appropriate backgrounds whom he could call for a vetting from an expert, or at least an interested amateur. Doesn't need to take their word for something, only to make sure there isn't some gaping hole he's missed. As it happens, I've called reporters to discuss what I think of as errors or omissions. I think about half a dozen times the reporter says they appreciate my input and want my number in case they have something come up in which I may have some knowledge. Never called. From which I deduce it's a put-off. Too bad. Actually calling might prevent some of the sillier howlers. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 19, 2006 12:58 PM | Permalink It's hard to tell when Dana Milbank is serious, Deborah Howell and rollback. Pittsford, N.Y.: Thanks for doing these chats. And outrage? Minneapolis, Minn.: I love your sly, irreverent take on the news. You're like a Shakespearean Fool who is allowed in the presence of the king even as the kingdom crumbles. I mean that as a compliment. A Rolodex with phone numbers of sources and/or experts to call for clarification about a story? That's only be SOP in newsrooms in the 30-plus years I've been doing this. As for why no reporters called you back, I'm leaving that one alone. It's just too easy. Posted by: Dave McLemore at May 19, 2006 1:14 PM | Permalink Steve, Well, I might have known you wouldn't be able to address factual issues raised on the merits, and hide behind the (irrelevant) Pulitzers. Great. But a Pulitzer-winning piece ought to be able to stand up to factual scrutiny. Obviously, the Pulitzer committee isn't too reliable - after all, Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer, too. And after all that has happened, and after Duranty has been as discredited and disgraced as any U.S.-based outlet journalist in the history of the profession, the Pulitzer committee still has not found the backbone to revoke the prize, to my knowledge. Then there's the matter of Janet Cooke. Dana Priest's Pulitzer-winning story on "secret prisons" is falling apart at the seams. None of her major allegations has been independently confirmed. Pulitzers do not make holy writ out of a work. If anything, they invite - demand - further scrutiny. You also hide behind the bestselling status of their book. All well and good, until you consider that Rush Limbaugh had a bestseller, too. The sales figures are wholly irrelevant to the quality of the research and journalism therein. The fact that you think that they would be is symptomatic of the sloppy critical thinking skills I've pointed out in other threads. You'd be quick to slam the same muddleheadedness on the part of Tony Snow or Scottie Mac, I'm sure. Can you address the criticism of the series on the merits? Or are Pulitzer-prize winning pieces, despite words of the CJR itself calling Duranty's into question, now beyond scrutiny?
Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 19, 2006 1:40 PM | Permalink Well, Dave, if they didn't think they'd call me back, they wouldn't have bothered to say they would. If the rolodex contains people who know stuff, as opposed to simply being your clones, then we wouldn't see the simple boners we see all the time. Big themes are probably not going to rise or fall based on calling a couple of folks on the outside. But you could get things like the beryllium theft story right. Somebody stole a ton of the stuff in Sweden and the journo tells us it's radioactive. It's not. Is that the sort of thing you'd like to avoid? Then haul out that rolodex. Presuming it has somebody on it besides your j-school graduating class. I bet your rolodex is pretty dusty. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 19, 2006 1:43 PM | Permalink Good news, bad news: The good-news is a New York Times reporter called me up the other day looking for help and background with a story. I hope I helped set her up for success, and I look forward to seeing the piece. Well, ok. It was a food reporter for the Dining section. Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at May 19, 2006 1:44 PM | Permalink Small steps, Jason. Small steps. Posted by: Dave McLemore at May 19, 2006 1:47 PM | Permalink Jason, you're confusing two series. Barlett and Steele's second Pulitzer came for a series exposing the 1986 tax reform legislation for the fraud that it was. (They did what no other reporters did: Read the 900 pages of loopholes appended to the legislation, and then decoded them, one by one by one.) Posted by: Steve Lovelady at May 19, 2006 3:13 PM | Permalink The NYTimes calling Jason (Mr. Joe Gallagher and the Cliff Clavin of all things tedious about the military) for background. What was the story, dining tips for MREs? Dale. If you're okay with the MSM screwing up on a regular basis--and I'm speaking only about accidents and ignorance, not deliberate lies--then you are making a good case for doing nothing and laughing at the people who have the temerity to complain. I don't have any media stock. I'm okay. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at May 19, 2006 3:39 PM | Permalink Ha, jaw! Show you how much you know! Real GIs don't actually eat MREs -- they trade them for FOOD! Posted by: Daniel Conover at May 19, 2006 4:04 PM | Permalink Jay Rosen: I think it's worth pointing out that in the scheme I suggested, one of the purposes is bringing new "press" populations into the White House. Karen Hughes (transcript, video, mp3), May 10: Eventually I recommended, and the President created, the White House Office of Global Communications. And that was my effort at the time to try to set up an office to do what I am currently doing at the State Department as the Under Secretary. [...] During the Cold War we were trying to get information into societies that were largely closed, where people were hungry for that information. Well, today in places like the Middle East there's an information explosion and no one is hungry for information. What we are competing for there is for attention and for credibility in a time when rumors can spark riots, and information, whether it's true or false, quickly spreads across the world, across the internet, in literally instants. Press Gaggle by Tony Snow, May 19: Q Within the context of what you've just said, and the President's support of English as a language, why is it that the President's address to the nation on Monday is featured in Spanish on the White House website? And why is it that no other languages -- Arabic, Polish, Italian -- are used as languages to put things on the President's website? MR. SNOW: John, that goes on the bupkis list. I don't know. Oh, by the way, b-u-p-k-I-s. We have to correct that, too. (Laughter.) Posted by: nedu at May 19, 2006 4:11 PM | Permalink So much for a new paradigm of actually answering reasonable questions. Tony sure avoided that tar baby ... Posted by: Richard B. Simon at May 19, 2006 5:20 PM | Permalink Snow is the head of an operation. Snow is the talking head of an operation. Doctrine courtesy of USINFO... A Responsible Press: The Press Office At Work Thinking Long Term and Short Term There is a reactive approach to news, and there is a proactive approach. One entails thinking short term and dealing with daily crises and breaking news. The other requires thinking long term and strategizing about the future. A good government press office performs both functions. Often, the reactive and proactive jobs occur in the same office, and if large enough are performed by two different people. “You can't do the day-to-day spokesman work and provide the more strategic advice and counsel.” "You can't do the day-to-day spokesman work and provide the more strategic advice and counsel, think through the policy, think through the message, recommend ways to deliver the message," Karen P. Hughes, counselor to President George W. Bush for communications and speechwriting told the Washington Post. [...] Sometimes the communications director runs the office, and the press secretary reports to him or her. [...] Sometimes the press secretary runs the office, and the communications director reports to him or her. (Bold inset added.) Snow is the talking head of an operation. |
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