At a Loss for Words
July 18, 2012 - by
Where was this when I needed it?
TheNew York Times reports that the Obama and Romney campaigns are insisting on the power to review and edit their quotes before journalists can use them. And news outlets go along, including the Times, Bloomberg, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and Reuters.
The story says: “The push and pull over what is on the record is one of journalism’s perennial battles. But those negotiations typically took place case by case, free from the red pens of press minders. Now, with a millisecond Twitter news cycle and an unforgiving, gaffe-obsessed media culture, politicians and their advisers are routinely demanding that reporters allow them final editing power over any published quotations.”
The result: “The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative.”
This would have saved me a lot of grief over the years.
By the way, Martha Waggoner of AP here tweets: “AP doesn’t allow campaigns to edit quotes.”
At a Loss for Words
July 18, 2012/
Where was this when I needed it?
TheNew York Times reports that the Obama and Romney campaigns are insisting on the power to review and edit their quotes before journalists can use them. And news outlets go along, including the Times, Bloomberg, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair and Reuters.
The story says: “The push and pull over what is on the record is one of journalism’s perennial battles. But those negotiations typically took place case by case, free from the red pens of press minders. Now, with a millisecond Twitter news cycle and an unforgiving, gaffe-obsessed media culture, politicians and their advisers are routinely demanding that reporters allow them final editing power over any published quotations.”
The result: “The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative.”
This would have saved me a lot of grief over the years.
By the way, Martha Waggoner of AP here tweets: “AP doesn’t allow campaigns to edit quotes.”