Mr. Media Training

Journalism (noun): The craft of interviewing politicians, transcribing their quotes, sending them back to the politicians so they can edit their own quotes to their satisfaction, and then printing the quotes exactly as the politicians demanded.

Any journalism student who defined their profession in the manner above would fail out of their college program. But they shouldn’t. Turns out, their definition would be spot on.

According to yesterday’s The New York Times:

“The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative.

They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under one major condition: the press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name.

Most reporters, desperate to pick the brains of the president’s top strategists, grudgingly agree. After the interviews, they review their notes, check their tape recorders and send in the juiciest sound bites for review.

The verdict from the campaign — an operation that prides itself on staying consistently on script — is often no, Barack Obama does not approve this message.”

If you’re an Obama hater, slow down before you take this as another sign of “Chicago style politics.” In certain situations, the Romney campaign does the exact same thing.

Just how pervasive is this practice? Again, from The New York Times:

“Organizations like Bloomberg, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Reuters and The New York Times have all consented to interviews under such terms.”

Why give a press conference when you can just insist on reporters publishing exactly what you want them to?

As a media trainer, you would think I would like this practice since it gives spokespersons more control over the story. And sure, if journalists are going to let people get away with this nonsense, political campaigns may as well keep doing it.

But my goal as a media trainer isn’t to teach people how to wrest stories out of the hands of journalists in order to serve as their de facto editors. It’s to prepare spokespersons to deliver effective media interviews every time they speak to the press.

People who believe in the need for an independent press should regard this practice as abhorrent egregious journalistic malpractice. The news organizations complicit in this insidious practice should band together immediately and collectively refuse to play ball on the terms demanded by these controlling campaigns.

For the moment, at least, this practice seems confined to high-level politics—so PR professionals who work in other sectors shouldn’t get any “bright” ideas from their political brethren.

What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Earlier today, both CNN and the Fox News Channel misreported the Supreme Court’s decision regarding President Obama’s health care law.

Screengrab by Jason Keath

I hammered CNN on Twitter for its mistake. Well-known investor Henry Blodget took me to task, arguing that “News orgs will always make mistakes…I’m sure they’re ripshit about it. Someone will probably get fired. But it is what it is. And it’s now old news.”

With all due respect, I believe that he couldn’t be more wrong. The issue isn’t hammering a news organization for a single mistake, but for failing to learn from high-profile mistakes the network—and other media organizations—have made in the past.

CNN, for example, did a lot of journalistic introspection after retracting its infamous “Operation Tailwind” story in 1998. But that didn’t stop the network from incorrectly calling Florida for Al Gore two years later (disclosure: I worked for CNN at the time, but had no influence over that call). 

And last year, CNN was again part of the story when many major news organizations—most notably National Public Radio—incorrectly reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had died. This appeared on NPR’s blog:

“2:24 p.m. ET: CNN reports it too has confirmed that Giffords was killed.”

They’re not alone. In 2004, The New York Post splashed John Kerry’s Vice Presidential choice on its front page: “Dem picks (Dick) Gephardt,” blared the headline. Except he didn’t. John Edwards got the nod.

In 1981, President Reagan’s spokesperson, James Brady, was declared dead by news networks after being hit by one of John Hinkley’s bullets. He’s still alive.

Remember President Thomas E. Dewey? In 1948, The Chicago Tribune named him the winner of the presidential election. He wasn’t. Harry Truman was elected to a full term.

These are just a few examples – the list of incorrect media stories could include hundreds of others.

As I’ve written before, journalists are under enormous pressure to report the latest information during a breaking news event. But as my former CNN colleague Bernard Kalb was fond of saying, “Get it first, but first get it second.” In other words, get the story first – but first, get a second source to confirm it.

What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section below.