WHAT IS EXPECTED WHEN AN INTERVIEW IS GRANTED. I posted here about the issues that arise out of the relationships between journalists and their sources (Mickey Kaus introduced me to the phrase “source greasing”.) I was recently led to this article by Jack Shafer in Slate from 2011. Shafer makes it clear that if a Washington reporter is granted an interview with an important personage, it is understood that the article will be favorable. Shafer says: “…ultimately, the accurate measure of a reporter is not how much sweet-talk he tosses at important sources but what sort of stories he writes at the end of the courtship.” When the interviewee has talking points he wants in the article, they should be in the article.
I have spent a lot of my life reading newspapers. I grew up reading the old Chicago Tribune. Yet I am still surprised by the pervasive cynicism of Washington journalism. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post is quoted by Shafer that Washington has “…a culture in which journalists implicitly provide positive coverage in exchange for tidbits of news.” Shafer himself says: “…that something was traded in the reporting of a piece shouldn’t shock anyone who has ever read a newspaper.”