Access and Accountability in the
Media
One Model of the Press:
Holding 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
Today
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 Accountability

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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 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 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 Accountability


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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 Cost


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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 Cost


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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 bullshitcalling isn’t meted out in precisely
equal increments along the political
spectrum.” Washington Post (11/30
06)
Trading Accountability for
Access


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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
Access


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 Accountability
 Insider
information and an insider point of
view.
 Confidential sources go unchallenged.
 Misinformation and disinformation pass
for news.