Journalism: Not rocket science
Unlike some of my peers, I've never tried to claim a privileged status for working journalists. I think there's a reason that the framers of the Constitution didn't really define "the press" when they included freedom of the press in the Bill of Rights: In the society they envisioned, I think, they figured that at some point almost any/every citizen might have to function as a journalist.
That's not to say there aren't some boundaries. Andrew Cline, a journalism professor and rhetorician at Southwest Missouri State and the publisher of the excellent Rhetorica blog, frequently talks about the "discipline of verification" involved in journalism. In practical terms, he says, "You don't write what you can't prove."
An essential part of proving or disproving a factual claim is knowing what questions to ask, and among the bigger failings of journalists who have covered the White House in my lifetime (I was born during Ike's second term) is their reluctance to ask the kinds of questions that truly hold government leaders accountable to the people who elect them. In fact, some days I've thought anyone off the street could ask better questions than the group that bloggers of both the Left and the Right frequently refer to as the White House Press Corpse.
Well, earlier this week, that's basically what happened: The whitehouse.gov Web site held an "Ask the White House" session with the president's communication's director, Dan Bartlett, and in one way or another, almost all the questions were seeking to hold the administration accountable for something or other:
In other words, these presumably randomly selected people did at least as good a job as the professionals at asking substantive questions, examining the state of our relations with our allies, seeking to determine whether the administration is telling the truth about the budget and the economy, and seeking more openness and accountability from the White House (two press briefings in two months is a very low number -- possibly a record low). They weren't trying to find out whether the president likes green beans and they weren't trying to psychoanalyze him.
Some of the people who asked questions got treated like the pros do, too. For example, Stephen from Colorado Springs wrote: "Dan, Why is it that the president or you will not declare that the documents (CYA Memos) are false and untrue? Certainly if the documents are fakes, then the information in them is false as well. Let's hear you and Mr. Bush say they are false and untrue accusations and we can settle all this mess."
Bartlett's response: "We don't have the technical expertise to determine if they were fake or not. Remember, these supposedly came from the personal files of man who died more than 20 years ago. Thankfully, a lot of expert bloggers and other news organizations did get to the bottom this growing scandal."
Note that Bartlett pretended that the questioner asked something else, and that Bartlett answered that question instead of the one he actually was asked.
The questioner asked whether the content of the documents was true or false. Bartlett chose to interpret this question as one pertaining to the authenticity of the pieces of paper, a question he could believably claim he was not qualified to answer. Presumably he could determine the truth or falsity of the contents of the documents by stepping into the Oval Office and asking President Bush a direct, yes-or-no question. Instead, Bartlett dodged. Public officials at all levels, of all stripes, do that -- a lot -- which explains why you so often see reporters at news conferences asking for a follow-up before the speaker has answered the first question.
So if you've ever thought you could do at least as good a job of covering the White House as those folks you see shouting at the president on TV, this week's "Ask the White House" suggests you might well be right. And people in my line of work would be wise to remember that.
