The Narrowing
By ROGER COHEN
NYT
NEW YORK — When I worked in Europe in the 1980s and ’90s, I would often run into a little clash of journalistic culture. People I’d interviewed would ask me to submit quotes for their approval — read adjustment — before publication. No, I’d say, that’s not U.S. practice, that’s not the way we do it.
Times change: I’m tempted to say the manufactured quote has become standard practice in the United States, but that would be provocative. Let’s just say that plenty of quotes are manufactured in the sense that they’ve been reviewed by their source and “tweaked,” or “cleaned up,” before publication. Plenty of others just die, or get paraphrased, because they never clear that hurdle.
The Obama administration is particularly active in this regard. I’d say one of its chief difficulties in its first year has been shifting from the relentlessly controlling, on-message, no-drama, one-star-in-the-firmament message of a campaign to the different demands of the presidency, where the humanity of America’s leader, his flesh-and-blood fallibility and impulses, assumes central importance.
Once in the Oval Office, the effective must yield in some measure to the emotive. “Pride in responsible process is the closest thing to an Obama ideology,” writes George Packer in a recent New Yorker piece called “Obama’s Lost Year.” Well, that won’t butter most people’s bagels.
(More here.)
NYT
NEW YORK — When I worked in Europe in the 1980s and ’90s, I would often run into a little clash of journalistic culture. People I’d interviewed would ask me to submit quotes for their approval — read adjustment — before publication. No, I’d say, that’s not U.S. practice, that’s not the way we do it.
Times change: I’m tempted to say the manufactured quote has become standard practice in the United States, but that would be provocative. Let’s just say that plenty of quotes are manufactured in the sense that they’ve been reviewed by their source and “tweaked,” or “cleaned up,” before publication. Plenty of others just die, or get paraphrased, because they never clear that hurdle.
The Obama administration is particularly active in this regard. I’d say one of its chief difficulties in its first year has been shifting from the relentlessly controlling, on-message, no-drama, one-star-in-the-firmament message of a campaign to the different demands of the presidency, where the humanity of America’s leader, his flesh-and-blood fallibility and impulses, assumes central importance.
Once in the Oval Office, the effective must yield in some measure to the emotive. “Pride in responsible process is the closest thing to an Obama ideology,” writes George Packer in a recent New Yorker piece called “Obama’s Lost Year.” Well, that won’t butter most people’s bagels.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home