Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources
    Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources
    Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources
    Ebook338 pages5 hours

    Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources

    By Norman Pearlstine

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    When Norman Pearlstine—as editor in chief of Time Inc.—agreed to give prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald a reporter's notes of a conversation with a "confidential source," he was vilified for betraying the freedom of the press. But in this hard-hitting inside story, Pearlstine shows that "Plamegate" was not the clear case it seemed to be—and that confidentiality has become a weapon in the White House's war on the press, a war fought with the unwitting complicity of the press itself.

    Watergate and the publication of the Pentagon Papers are the benchmark incidents of government malfeasance exposed by a fearless press. But as Pearlstine explains with great clarity and brio, the press's hunger for a new Watergate has made reporters vulnerable to officials who use confidentiality to get their message out, even if it means leaking state secrets and breaking the law. Prosecutors appointed to investigate the government have investigated the press instead; news organizations such as The New York Times have defended the principle of confidentiality at all costs—implicitly putting themselves above the law. Meanwhile, the use of unnamed sources has become common in everything from celebrity weeklies to the so-called papers of record.

    What is to be done? Pearlstine calls on Congress to pass a federal shield law protecting journalists from the needless intrusions of government; at the same time, he calls on the press to name its sources whenever possible. Off the Record is a powerful argument with the vividness and narrative drive of the best long-form journalism; it is sure to spark controversy among the people who run the government—and among the people who tell their stories.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJun 26, 2007
    ISBN9780374708344
    Author

    Norman Pearlstine

    Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Inc. from 1995 to 2005, was previously the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. He trained as a lawyer before making his career as a journalist. He was just named chief content officer of Bloomberg L.P.

    Related to Off the Record

    Related ebooks

    Popular Culture & Media Studies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Red State, Blue City

      Feb 2, 2017

      Red State, Blue City
      7 min read

    • Article

      Disarming Disinformation

      Jun 26, 2018

      THERE ARE MANY compelling moments in the story of Shane Johnson, the former Klansman who shares his experience for this issue’s cover piece. One of the most fascinating ones is a conversation between Johnson and other ex-extremists and some techies w

      3 min read

    • Article

      Six Degrees of Separation at Burning Man

      Jul 11, 2019

      Today the alkaline desert is quiet. The roar of techno music and flamethrowers has been replaced with the soft clink of rakes and trash cans. Thousands of people put aside their hangovers to methodically clean the desert. After a dedicated communal c

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Clarence Thomas Effect

      Jul 10, 2019

      The Clarence Thomas Effect
      7 min read

    • Article

      How Biden And Harris’ Families Are Using Social Media To Offer Insight Into The Country’s New Leaders

      Jan 21, 2021

      Over the last four years, the president has largely used his social media accounts to spread hate and misinformation, and incite violence. But, with the Biden-Harris administration about to commence, a new era of social media use - and with it, poten

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Rise Of The “Gamers”

      Jul 1, 2020

      If one is to profoundly understand a society and era, as the sociologist Max Weber superbly taught, one must grasp the character and spirit of their dominant class.1A great deal that is central to American society and history since 1965 has been shap

      20 min read

    • Article

      Inside Game

      Jan 17, 2020

      Inside Game
      13 min read

    • Article

      The Columbine Blueprint

      Apr 19, 2019

      The Columbine Blueprint
      7 min read

    • Article

      Jan. 6 Panel Faces A Different Legal Test To Refer Mark Meadows For Criminal Contempt

      Nov 26, 2021

      The panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack are taking their time before deciding to pursue criminal contempt against Mark Meadows because it will be a bigger legal test.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Conservatives Need To Argue About Ideas, Not About Trump

      May 25, 2018

      "Let's grow up, conservatives." That call to arms was delivered by Barry Goldwater at the 1960 Republican convention to implore members of the then-youthful conservative movement to hold their noses and rally around Richard Nixon's candidacy. Neal Fr

      3 min read

    • Article

      A New Kind of Fascism

      Jul 25, 2023

      A New Kind of Fascism
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Supreme Court Is Deciding More And More Cases In A Secretive ‘Shadow Docket’ | Moira Donegan

      Aug 31, 2021

      Last week, it was Remain in Mexico. On Tuesday, the supreme court issued an order requiring the Biden administration to reinstate the Trump-era policy that required asylum seekers from Central America to stay across the border in Mexico while their c

      4 min read

    • Article

      Grim And Hopeful Global Trends To Watch In 2020 (And Fold Into A Zine)

      Jan 2, 2020

      There's cause for pessimism and optimism in the year ahead as our expert sources share their predictions. Plus: Print and fold your own global trends zine.

      11 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Off the Record

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Off the Record - Norman Pearlstine

      1

      Anonymous Sources

      As a young reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s Detroit bureau, I often wrote the weekly story about current levels of domestic auto-plant production. A table with estimates for each line of car and truck manufactured by the auto companies would appear at the end of the story. The figures served as a barometer for the industry and, by extension, the economy. The companies didn’t issue press releases detailing production schedules, but there were men at General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and American Motors who would answer my calls and give me estimates for their companies. I would include the estimates in my stories with no attribution. One week, my source at Chrysler said he had been told to stop providing estimates. That’s fine, I replied. I shall do my own estimate, and I always estimate low. The source called back a few minutes later and said Chrysler would continue to provide the numbers we sought to publish.

      These anonymous sources were passed from one generation of Journal reporters to the next. In my two years in Detroit, 1970 and 1971, I never met any of them, and I never sought verification from a secondary source at any of the companies, because I didn’t have a secondary source. To this day, I have no idea whether the numbers were accurate or whether the companies were using the Journal to mislead the public or their competitors.

      There is no pride in telling this story. Today, I would refuse to print an article based on that kind of reporting. But it is just one example of the ways in which anonymous sources have become embedded in journalism; they are a critical part of coverage in small towns and large cities, and for national newspapers, magazines, cable news channels, and television networks.

      The public is rightly suspicious of anonymous sources. Daniel Okrent, the first New York Times public editor (the Times designation for a position known at other publications as ombudsman), wrote in May 2005, Since I’ve been in this job, use of anonymous sources has been the substantive issue raised most often by readers. They challenge the authenticity of quotations. They question the accuracy of the information in the quotations. They believe reporters who invoke unidentified sources are lazy or, far worse, dishonest.

      In contrast, most journalists believe information from anonymous sources is more trustworthy than the canned, on-the-record quotes printed in press releases and uttered at news conferences by government officials, executives, and celebrities. If a reporter is doing an on-the-record interview, both sides presume that the source is trying to put the best possible face on every answer. So, if the source asks to go on background at some point during the interview, the reporter naturally reacts, Aha! After ten minutes of mindless crap, I’m finally going to get something juicy I can use. It rarely occurs to the reporter that the source might be spinning the facts—or that spinning the reporter is really easier on background when the subject doesn’t have to take responsibility for a quote.

      Especially in Washington, the background briefing has supplanted the on-the-record conversation to such a degree that many reporters assume that every interview is on background unless the source stipulates otherwise.

      Clark Hoyt, the insightful former chief of Knight Ridder’s Washington bureau, recalls a meeting he and a few other news executives had with then White House press secretary Scott McClellan in 2005 to protest the number of background briefings the administration was holding. They met after a particularly silly briefing on an energy policy speech the President was to give the following day, Hoyt recalls. Not only was the conference call on background, but also the reporters weren’t told who the two officials were, even though it was understood that one was the secretary of energy. Knight Ridder and some of the others in attendance had drawn the line, refusing to print anything from the briefing. Scott explained that no one in the administration wanted to get out in front of the President, stealing his news, Hoyt says. That was ridiculous, especially since there wasn’t any news in the speech anyway. Had the briefing been of substance, however, I believe that protests notwithstanding, the news organizations would have run stories based on it.

      Jack Shafer, Slate’s media columnist, has pointed out that it is difficult for reporters to break this habit because the surplus of journalists and the relative scarcity of knowledgeable sources allow the sources to pick the rules of engagement. If a reporter insists that a source put the information on the record, the source can always say, ‘Screw you,’ and shop it to a publication that will agree to anonymity. If what the source has to say is true and newsworthy, he’ll find a market.

      Shafer’s observations about Washington apply to other areas where reporters compete for scoops, including Hollywood, Wall Street, foreign wars, and sports. As a reporter, I frequently wrote stories that included quotes from anonymous sources. But in three decades working as an editor, I came to resent and distrust the absence of attribution. First at The Wall Street Journal, and then at Time Inc., I tried to ban unattributed quotes. But I learned there were limits to my power as editor in chief. Reporters and editors alike pushed back, insisting they couldn’t do their work without giving sources anonymity. To see how successful my campaign was, consider this item on Britney Spears and Kevin Federline from a December 2005 issue of People:

      With the sleepless nights, dirty diapers and high emotions that accompany young parenthood, perhaps the big blowup was inevitable. On Nov. 30, Britney Spears and her husband Kevin Federline had such a heated argument that, a source close to the couple says, Spears dropped the D word and Federline bolted from their Malibu home. She wanted a divorce, says a friend of Spears’s. And, says a source close to Federline, When she’s upset with him, he likes to give her some space. I don’t think she’s upset with him because of something specific he’s done. I think she’s overwhelmed with her new lifestyle—being a wife and mother—and sometimes takes it out on the people who she’s closest to and who she knows will stick around. Spears’s way of taking it out on her husband? By showing up that night at the L.A. club LAX and dancing into the wee hours with friends. It was definitely a girls’ night out, says a source. Kevin was being punished.

      Of course, Federline, 27, didn’t seem too tortured during his own marathon weekend of clubbing in Las Vegas: First he and his all-male entourage hit Pure Nightclub, where he caught up with Nicole Richie’s fiancé DJ AM, then partied at the club Tao Las Vegas until 4 a.m. In any case, the punishment proved short-lived. After her 25th birthday on Dec. 2, Spears took a quick jaunt to Vegas (where she checked into the Wynn Las Vegas resort, half a mile down the Strip from her husband’s suite at The Venetian), then repaired to Louisiana to spend time with her mother, Lynne, and sister Jamie Lynn. But by Tuesday, according to a source close to the couple, she had settled back into her Malibu manse with her husband and their 3-month-old son Sean Preston. This has happened before, says an insider. "They always work it

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1