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Is the President Ever Off the Record?

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Andrea Parquet-Taylor Out as Detroit News Director

“Can’t Quote Me” Is Part of D.C. Tradition, Veterans Say

When ABC’s Terry Moran delivered the “tweet” heard round the world – that President Obama had called rapper Kanye West a “jackass” in informal banter with reporters – it reignited a debate about whether a president, like other public officials, can ever be truly “off the record.”

According to veterans who have covered the White House, the answer is that while the phrase “off the record” is open to interpretation – many times what is really meant is that the material can be used, just not for attribution – a president can expect that if there is prior agreement, some comments won’t be published or broadcast.

In fact, some wish Obama would open up around reporters more often.

Michael Fletcher, a Washington Post White House correspondent, told an audience at the Freedom Forum’s Newseum on Aug. 29, “I think it would be good to be able to talk to the president and just hear what’s on his mind without having to report every single thought that comes out of him. There’s not a lot of room for that any more.”

Here’s what prompted the debate, as summarized by David Bauder of the Associated Press:

“ABC News says it was wrong for its employees to tweet that Obama had called West a ‘jackass’ for the rapper’s treatment of country singer Taylor Swift. The network said some of its employees had overheard a conversation between the president and CNBC’s John Harwood and didn’t realize it was considered off the record.

“The network apologized to the White House and CNBC.

“Harwood had sat down with the president to tape an interview following his appearance on Wall Street on Monday. Although they are competitors, CNBC and ABC share a fiber optic line to save money, and this enabled some ABC employees to listen in on the interview as it was being taped for later use.

“Their attention was drawn to chatter about West, who was widely criticized for interrupting Swift as she accepted an award at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards to say that Beyonce deserved it.

“E-mails shot around among ABC employees about Obama’s comments, said Jeffrey Schneider, ABC News spokesman. Before anything was reported on ABC’s air or Web site, at least three network employees took to Twitter to spread the news.

“One was Terry Moran, a former White House correspondent. He logged on to Twitter and typed: ‘Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a ‘jackass’ for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.’

“When ABC News authorities found out about it, they had the tweets deleted after about an hour, Schneider said. Moran declined a request to comment.

“But the news was out.”

Bauder went on to quote from a piece by the Poynter Institute’s Kelly McBride, who wrote, “I have qualms about ever letting the president of the United States go off the record. He’s the most powerful man in the world. Perhaps an experienced White House reporter could find a story for which the president’s off-the-record comments were critical to getting the truth to the public. But that decision would be made with the highest level of editor.”

When McBride’s article was posted Tuesday on Facebook, it was greeted by amens, including this comment from Charlotte H. Hall, editor of the Orlando Sentinel and past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors:

“Yes, the president should never be off the record with the media. Reporters’ first obligation is to their readers.”

But in Washington, reporters offered a different view of how readers are best served.

Going off the record? “I’m not for it or against it, but it helps me do my job,” April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, told Journal-isms. “It helps you get a nugget for digging deeper into a story.”

“Very little would be published in Washington if everything had to be on the record,” said another veteran who, ironically, said she could not be named. Her company’s policy is that only designated spokesmen can talk to reporters.

Ryan recalled an off-the-record soul food dinner shared with then-president Bill Clinton and black journalists in 1999.

“There is value in letting a president speak candidly off the record,” said one participant. “You can learn how a president thinks, watch how the wheels turn. . . . The funny thing about the Clinton dinner is that a lot of us managed to work some of what he said into our stories.”

At his Newseum appearance, Fletcher drew a comparison with the George W. Bush White House.

“Bush . . . would bring groups of reporters up to the residence and we’d sit around in the Yellow Oval, we would call it, and he’d just sit there and tell stories, and sometimes this would go on for two hours off the record. . . . he would just talk about his meetings with foreign leaders, like the baggage some leaders carried, and their suspicions, and how he thought they were unwarranted, or whatever, things like that. And he’d talk about the feeling he had, for example, addressing the U.N., and he would talk about those things that were strictly off the record. And some of those things you could go back, and you could sort of work the press office, and get them on the record in some cases.”

By contrast, he said of Obama, “I was with him on a trip we did to Moscow, Madrid and Italy, and to Ghana, and you could feel this kind of distance, He’s not chummy with us. There were times I was in a pool, for example, at the G8 [summit], and you’re just kind of floating around. There were a couple of instances where you’re kind of like, face to face, and he basically – has nothing to say. You can feel this kind of ‘I have to be on.’ I’m not going to show this guy anything, or give this guy anything to run with. There’s a little bit of that. It’s not antagonistic, but I think there’s sort of this defensiveness, this kind of like, ‘We can’t let the press in, because they’ll just misuse the opportunity.’ I think there’s a mistrust.”

Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice once told the National Association of Black Journalists that she was a dinner guest at the home of Gwen Ifill of PBS. “It was one time. It wasn’t private. It was a bunch of reporters. It happens all the time in Washington with administration officials. It’s just a way of getting to know people,” Ifill told the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer’s Fannie Flono when she asked about it in a 2005 interview.

Ifill gave Journal-isms a nuanced view.

“1. the issue with the kanye deal is that when the president is getting miked up and there is chit chat going out over a fiber line, is it inappropriate for another network to broadcast (in a cyber way) the chit chat. I think it was inappropriate, and abc did too, which is why they took it down and apologized,” she said via e-mail.

“2. I do believe the issue of ‘off the record’ is different when the person you are talking about is the president. I don’t particularly care [if] the President swats a fly or calls Kanye an ass off the record. But maybe that’s just me. If he changes his health care stand off the record, that is unacceptable. . . . I would stop. I would object. If he insisted, I would ask him (and the press staff) if I could negotiate later to put the comments on the record.

“Keep in mind, no President I’ve covered ever really thinks he is completely off the record, or he would not be talking to a reporter.

“3. On the other hand, I have been involved in dozens of ‘off the record’ conversations you will never hear about, because i will not talk about them. That’s what ‘off the record’ means.

“Background conversations, like the meal with Secretary Rice, are far more useful, because you can use the information without attribution. For a television reporter, most of what happens without a camera present is de facto background anyway. If what a reporter is looking for [is] information that will help you better understand an issue, background is useful. Surely we know (or, as news professionals, ought to know) where to draw the line without cutting off our noses to spite our faces – and putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage at the same time.”

Jimmy Carter Statement on Racism Reverberates

In an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams on ‘Nightly News’ for a longer piece that will air at a later date,” Mark Murray of NBC News wrote on Wednesday, “former President Jimmy Carter reflected:

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, I live in the South, and I’ve seen the South come a long way . . . “

Carter continued, “And that racism inclination still exists. And I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply.”

Kevin Allocca of TV Newser wrote, “This morning, the comment has quickly spread across the cable news nets. On ‘Fox & Friends,’ Gretchen Carlson said, ‘It’s not just former president Jimmy Carter saying this. It’s many members of congress and many people – columnists here in the U.S. – who are now race baiting this whole topic. It appears this issue is not going to go away.’ ‘Morning Joe’ host Joe Scarborough remarked, ‘I guess patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Could we add to that that playing the race card is the last refuge of the truly desperate? I’m serious.'”

Keith Boykin of theDailyVoice.com said of the attention to Carter’s remarks: “it does reveal how racism is so ingrained in our culture that we automatically dismiss those charges when raised by the victims themselves and only validate them when ‘objective’ white people say so.”

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that Obama, the nation’s first black president, doesn’t think that criticism of his policies is “based on the color of his skin.”

Obama Will Be Hard to Miss on TV This Weekend

“It’s going to be awfully hard to avoid President Obama on television this Sunday,” as Adam Nagourney wrote for the New York Times.

“The president is going to appear on five Sunday talk shows ‚Äì five ‚Äì to press his case for health care, White House officials disclosed. That is a presidential record.

“Mr. Obama is going to appear on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. And Meet the Press on NBC. And Face the Nation on CBS. In between, he is going to sit down for interviews on CNN and Univision. (Fox News didn’t make the cut).”

The Univision appearance, with Jorge Ramos on Sunday’s “Al Punto,” is to be taped on Friday.

Obama is also scheduled for CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman” on Monday, where he will be the sole guest.

Mainstream, Left Hope to Counter Right-Wing Assaults

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists joined more than 50 civil rights, public interest and grassroots organizations Wednesday in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission and congressional leaders supporting Mark Lloyd, the associate general counsel and chief diversity officer of the FCC who is under assault by right-wing groups.

The groups supporting Lloyd said he “has been unfairly attacked on cable TV and radio talk shows with false and misleading information about his role and responsibilities at the FCC. A respected scholar and public servant, Lloyd was hired by the agency to expand media opportunities for women, people of color, small businesses, and those living in rural areas.”

The group Media Matters, meantime, urged CNN to drop host Lou Dobbs, who has been accused of scapegoating immigrants who are in the country illegally. “If CNN won’t drop Dobbs, it’s time that his advertisers did. It’s time to do more than simply highlight the damage Dobbs does and the threat he poses. We must demand accountability from the advertisers who, by their purchase of airtime on his shows, actively support his hate speech,” Media Matters said.

Meanwhile, Dean Baquet, New York Times Washington bureau chief, responded to charges that his paper had been slow to report on right-wing targeting of the former “green jobs czar” Van Jones.

Baquet said he agreed with Times managing editor Jill Abramson, who responded to readers on NYTimes.com that the paper was “beat behind” on the story of Jones, who resigned a week ago. “The paper, he said, should have run a piece when Jones apologized for radical statements and an affiliation with a 9/11 ‘truther’ group prior to his resignation,” Michael Calderone and Mike Allen wrote Tuesday for Politico.

“Still, Baquet said he doesn’t think ‘not being all over the Van Jones story is a mortal sin.’ And for critics claiming bias, Baquet pointed out that the paper aggressively covered allegations against Democrat Tom Daschle, someone who would have had far more power in the Obama administration.”

Politico wrote, “From birthers to tea parties to town halls and ACORN, the scandal-plagued anti-poverty group – not to mention President Obama’s speech last week to school children and the background of former White House aide Van Jones – issues initially dismissed or missed entirely by the national media have burst, if only fleetingly, onto the national agenda after relentless coverage on Fox News, talk radio and in the blogosphere.”

NAHJ Objects to “Illegals” to Describe Immigrants

“As the heated debates over health care and immigration reform collide, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists calls on our nation’s news media to stop using the dehumanizing term ‘illegals’ as a noun to refer to undocumented immigrants,” NAHJ said on Tuesday.

“NAHJ has long advocated for accurate terminology in news coverage of immigration. NAHJ is concerned with the increasing use of pejorative terms like ‘illegals’ – which is shorthand for ‘illegal aliens,’ another term NAHJ objects to using – to describe the estimated 12 million undocumented people living in the United States.”

Separately, in her Latina Lista blog, Marisa Trevi?±o wrote, “it was disappointing to hear President Obama repeatedly use the term ‘illegal immigrant’ in his recent healthcare speech to the joint session of Congress.

“In the past, he has referred to this population by its more accurate description of ‘undocumented immigrants’ and so the prevailing thought among immigrant advocates is that the President’s use of the term was a subtle political olive branch to those like ‘Joe the Congressional Heckler’ Wilson.”

Ivan Roman, NAHJ’s executive director, said, “Our preferred term is undocumented worker or undocumented immigrant. That is what’s in our resource guide.”

 

Andrea Parquet-Taylor, right, with Darra Dooley, left, and Robin Basil at a Detroit Urban League function in March. (Credit: Andrea Stinson)

Andrea Parquet-Taylor Out as Detroit News Director

Andrea Parquet-Taylor, news director of WXYZ-TV in Detroit since 2004, was let go by the station on Monday, General Manager Robert Sliva told Journal-isms on Wednesday.

He said he did not know the whereabouts of Taylor, a member of the National Association of Black Journalists who came to the station from WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C., where she was also news director. Silva arrived at the station last year.

“I can’t get into personnel, or personal issues,” he said. “We’ll post the job and look for a new news director.”

The Scripps-owned station, an ABC affiliate, ranked second during the May sweeps period.

“WDIV-TV (Channel 4) once again has emerged with the No. 1 newscast at 5, 6, and 11 p.m. weekdays,” Mekeisha Madden Toby wrote in May in the Detroit News.

“At 5 p.m., the local NBC affiliate garnered a 6.0 rating/14 share in Metro Detroit households, compared to WXYZ-TV (Channel 7) with a 5.9 rating/14 share and WJBK’s 3.9/9 share. At 6 p.m., the difference is even greater with WDIV pulling in a 7.8 rating/17 share, while WXYZ had a 5.6 rating/12 share, and WJBK trailed in last place with a 3.9 rating/9 share.”

“The news environment has gotten very competitive,” Sliva told Journal-isms. “On any given day,” a station can be No. 1 or No. 3.

In 2004, Parquet-Taylor’s station made news when it pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show off the air for a night after a crack the comedian made about Detroit during the NBA finals.

During a halftime interview, Kimmel joked: “They’re going to burn down the city of Detroit if the Pistons win, and it’s not worth it.”

The Detroit News quoted Parquet-Taylor saying: “We are pretty livid about the entire situation.”

Wichita Paper Plans to “Rebuild the Diversity”

The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, which has seen all but one of its black journalists leave¬†the paper in recent months, will attempt “to start over and rebuild the diversity on our news staff. No one is nonchalant about the importance of that,” Sherry Chisenhall, the editor, told Journal-isms on Wednesday.

“We have hired a new staff member of color who starts later this month, and we’ll know in the next few weeks which other openings we’re filling,” she said. Chisenhall declined to identify the new staff member.

Speaking about Mark McCormick, the Wichita native and longtime local columnist, Chisenhall said by e-mail, “yes, Mark’s departure removed an important voice in the community and in The Eagle. We understood his decision to leave and take the top leadership role at an important institution in the community. We moved our columnists to 30-hour weeks out of necessity, and we understood that some might have to make other career choices.

“You ask if it makes a difference not having an African American columnist. I would answer that it makes a difference not having a metro columnist, period. I can’t think of any positions we’ve lost that have not had detrimental effects for our readers. Our remaining staff members have made enormous and painful sacrifices that affect their families greatly, and there’s NO one here who has or would ever say that that is simply the cost of efficiency. Ever. Everyone in this newsroom – and I would suspect every newsroom – is painfully aware of the personal loss and sacrifice and is doing what they can to get through this.

“We lost employees who we worked very hard over many years to find, hire and keep here. Now we have to start over and rebuild the diversity on our news staff. No one is nonchalant about the importance of that.”

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