Manufacturing "news" the D.C. bureau way!
The Chronicle ran a story by White House correspondent Julie Mason over the weekend that began as follows:
President Bush's sustained outrage last week about newspaper reports on a program tracking terrorists' financial records may have seemed odd considering how urgently the administration once publicized the program's broad concepts.
What a "gotcha" lead! The impression is that President Bush's criticism last week of the New York Times was phony and hypocritical, since the administration once touted the program. How outrageous!
And after Ms. Mason carries on for nine more paragraphs developing that line of thought, she finally offers this:
The difference between disclosures in the Rose Garden and in the newspaper is that the Times and others are reporting operational details, according to the White House.
Classified operational details, she did not add.
So, in Ms. Mason's editorial view, apparently touting the broad contours of a program is equivalent to publishing classified operational details of a program even after administration officials and critics (like Rep. John Murtha) asked the New York Times not to do so!
This wasn't really a news story, and wasn't even a very good "gotcha!" editorial. Unfortunately, it's fairly typical of the Chronicle's D.C. bureau, which rarely (if ever) produces work that can't be found in other sources. Maybe it's time for Hearst to consider consolidating its D.C. coverage, and letting the affiliate newspapers redeploy their resources for local/regional coverage (the Chronicle's regional/state reporting could use the boost). Articles like this, which try too hard to manufacture news out of nothing, help to make that case.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/04/06 03:40 PM | Print |
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