I'm not going to comment much on my employer's salons except to say that I've been to them, and there's no scandal there. At the paid ones, where the journalists talk, the journalists dictate what we say, and the sponsors are told they have no control. At the unpaid salons, it's--well, it's an off the record briefing, of the sort that every other journalist is well familiar with. Either way, I've never said or done anything that I wouldn't say at a regular interview, and neither have the other journalists.
But this Jack Shafer article is just silly. Off the record conversations allow journalists to get much deeper understanding of what's going on. That's why journalists talking to their friends about their jobs at companies of interest to the journalist talk off the record. I'm sure that Jack Shafer has done this, or else he doesn't have any friends in the media.
Now, there are journalists that get carried away with the excitement of an off-the-record conversation. Subjects can lie just as easily off the record as on it. But it's absurd to say that the only worthwhile conversations between journalists and the powerful are on the record. Off the record conversations allow politicians to say things that they cannot say publicly because the Fed Chairman or the Secretary of State or the Schools Chancellor cannot be seen to say certain things as they are trying to affect outcomes--they are, as the economists like to say, endogenous to the system. Restricting their ability to explain things off the record would restrict the supply of information available, not expand it.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic said it...
I believe it...
That settles it?
The Atlantic isn't really a news organization, it's a commentary organization. It's more akin to the National Review or The Nation than the New York Times. Of course, the New York times isn't the NYT any more either.
There are very few actual newspapers left these days.
We understand the process. You go to a fancy affair with your boss. Nice men in good suits tell you how much wonderful drug research is funded by our current health system. You put forth a series of posts saying that wonderful things depend on maintaining our current health system.
Nobody ever accused you of biasing factual analysis to please your sponsors. That would imply you were doing all sorts of things you never do, and totally reverse the process you use to go from conclusions to arguments in support thereof.
Cute, but I have never been to an event with anyone from the healthcare industry that I am aware of. The only sponsored event I've done was a panel on green energy sponsored by Siemens.
Oh, I'm so sorry!
Maybe if you show a little doubt, post a few cost & mortality comparisons, Bradley will invite you to the manse for some encouragement?
Yes the only obvious way that anyone, ANYONE would disagree with you is that they are paid.
Where is my check?
Derek
Perish the thought, & don't count your money.
Self interest (& dim wits) are hardly the only reasons people write foolish things. Megan was hired to do what she was already doing, and has continued doing it. It is what it is, not what it isn't. Advocacy & analysis are not the same thing, no matter how many vague references to analysis having been done are thrown in to give an impression otherwise.
David Bradley's motives are much more interesting. His message opens the door a crack, saying that the Atlantic's print advertising is down the drain. What has replaced it? Subscriptions, lobbying, pure beneficence - he doesn't say.
Although he is saying it in an annoying way, Downpuppy's final point is well made: who is paying for the Atlantic, if not the readers.
While I can judge the quality of the writing independent of the question, I still like to know who is buying me my news and editorials, since I am apparently not paying for it myself.
I think the thing I find most worrying with all these things is not the peddling of influence per se, but the creation of an environment where journalists will think of people and policies they cover in relation to chummy conversation. In particular, I worry about, say, a Washington Post reporter realizing there's less to a story than he thought after hearing off-the-record reassurances from a Senior Administration Official and a Highly Placed Corporate Executive. The problem is that we won't get a story saying, "Some are concerned about the impact of this policy on pink elephants, but a Senior Administration Official dismissed these claims while a Highly Placed Executive in the pink elephant industry discussed new industry practices to insure that pink elephants are defect free." Instead, no story will be written at all because the muckraker of yore is now rubbing shoulders with the power elite and will not think there's a story if he's been told in confidence that there isn't.
Perhaps this gives less credit to journalists than they are due. But journalists are human and my own personal experience tells me that when people with power take you into their confidence, you tend to assume that they've taken you into their confidence. This misses two possibilities: 1) they don't know what they're talking about 2) they've shaded the truth to impact the things you say or do.
For a magazine like the Atlantic that trades in elite opinion, I think that's fine. While we hope for incisive analysis that cuts through the bull, we know you guys are disseminators of it as well, just so with National Review and The New Republic. But the Post still pretends to be a newspaper. It ought to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable - not having salons to get the party line on the weighty matters the comfortable are dealing with so they can tell the afflicted that everything is under control.
hear hear. If this off-the-record, "wine and brie" meeting stuff is no big deal, why is the news profession so reluctant to talk about it and a bit defensive about it when people do raise it? Because they ought to be embarassed, that is why. Part of their claim to be the fourth institution is because they stand in a position of institutional conflict with the three branches of government: breaking good stories when covering government usually, but not always, involves embarassing someone in government, someone who would rather you not publish *that* particular bit of information.
The more chummy you are with those people, the less likely you will publish that information and embarass them. And the more times you sip that fine wine and gnosh that great brie together, swapping stories about your kids, the more chummy you will be. Human nature.
So as the inevitable "capture" of the journalist is accomplished, why the hell would we, the public, respect them as the fourth institution? Journalists will of course indignantly argue that they are too strong-willed to be gulled that way. "They will throw their mother under a bus for a story!", will be the claim, "so don't worry about us going soft."
Yeah, right. You hear that from every politician as (s)he cozies up to campaign donors too. Much like that money is buying something, a politician showing up at those meetings is getting a benefit from it.
gbarto makes the point perfectly.
The issue here isn't with the Atlantic indulging in this sort of chummy behavior (this is hardly anything new, simply more systematized and 'official'), but rather with 'news' organizations engaging in this kind of thing. As the press (i.e. self-defined journalists) expect privileges (shield laws come to mind, as well as the presumption of their credibility and right to access that we poor peasants in the general public are typically denied), it should also be held to a higher standard to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Once this is lost, they become nothing more than PR agents for various players...
As for Downpuppy's comments...how loathesome...
This is all very disheartening. We're at a point in our history when we need our private sector independent journalists. Instead we've got an army of resume fetish careerists selling us down the river. Megan can probably legitimately claim no foul due to the Atlantic Mag. position as an opinion magazine. But here we are in the midst of a economic disaster, much more trouble to come, and we're analyzing just how much conflict of interest is really OK when our journalists should be clearing the decks of any questionable behavior. It's a sad time in the history of journalism to see them fail us so miserably when we need them so much.
Yours is the narrowest of excuses that passes only gas. You may have stated your motives for being there - no doubt you were paid as well - but what of the attendees? Did they just expect facetime? What were their motivations for attending? I doubt they just came to hear a lecture. They were looking to build influence and perhaps tilt an opinion in their direction. There is little difference between your activities and a lobbyist. No doubt they feel that if they don't write the legislation god forbid a congressman will. Power is ineffable and has little to do with what you think. The fact that you did not disclose this until now is disheartening. The Atlantic's response yesterday (?) is laughable.
So... transparency for me but not for thee?
In the immortal words of Lyndon Baines Johnson, "Don't piss on my boots and tell me it's raining."