Access and Accountability in the Access and Accountability in the MediaMedia

One Model of the Press:One Model of the Press:Holding the Powerful AccountableHolding the Powerful Accountable

The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

• Finley Peter Dunne

The Jungle, Teapot Dome, McCarthy, Pentagon Papers, Watergate, ABSCAM, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, Lewinski

The Accountability Function The Accountability Function TodayToday

Missed Scandals: Savings & Loan, Tech Bubble, Enron (et al), Subprime, Execution without Due Process, Surveillance

Daily Show Undoing Crossfire 60 Minutes (1/29/2012) challenging Leon

Panetta on the killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki

Failure of AccountabilityFailure of Accountability David Gregory, Meet the Press “there are a lot of critics who

think that . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job.  I respectfully disagree.  It's not our role.”

Failure of AccountabilityFailure of Accountability Judith Miller, former NYT reporter “My job was not to collect

information and analyze it independently as an intelligence agency; my job was to tell … what people inside the governments . . . were saying to one another …” New York Review of Books (2/26/04)

Failure of AccountabilityFailure of Accountability Leonard Downie, executive editor

Washington Post "We are not judging the credibility

of Kerry or the [Swift Boat] Veterans; we just print the facts.” Interview with Editor & Publisher (8/24/04)

Failure of AccountabilityFailure of Accountability Michael Gordon, NYT reporter "but the way journalism works is

you write what you know” “I wrote the contrary case, giving

the IAEA equal time. They disputed it. I don’t have a dog in this fight. I didn’t know what was the ultimate truth.” DemocracyNow! (3/17/06)

Accountability at a CostAccountability at a Cost Ashleigh Banfield, former CNN

reporter “There is a grand difference

between journalism and coverage, and getting access does not mean you're getting the story.”

“It wasn’t journalism. . .” KSU speech 4/23/04

Accountability at a CostAccountability at a Cost Dan Froomkin, Washington Post "Calling bullshit … used to be central

to journalism . . . Calling bullshit has never been more vital to our democracy.”

“intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources . . fear of being labeled partisan if one’s bullshit-calling isn’t meted out in precisely equal increments along the political spectrum.” Washington Post (11/30 06)

Trading Accountability for Trading Accountability for AccessAccess

Tucker Carlson, Fox News, CNN & MSNBC commentator

What about “the relationship between the press and the powerful. People don't talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them as you did in this piece. “

“Don't you think that hurts the rest of us in our effort to get to the truth from the principals in these campaigns? “

Trading Accountability for Trading Accountability for AccessAccess

Tim Russert, Meet the Press “When I talk to senior

government officials on the phone, it's my own policy -- our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission.” Washington Post, (2/8/07)

The Price of a Lack of AccountabilityThe Price of a Lack of Accountability Insider information and an insider point of

view. Confidential sources go unchallenged. Misinformation and disinformation pass

for news.