Journalists, lies and videotape: You be the judge
Andrew Sullivan, about whom we can all have a debate some other time, said something on Friday with which I completely agree:
Like David, I am privileged in many ways to be able to meet and talk to a lot of powerful figures. David and I have been at many functions of this sort together, but I have to say I disagree. These interactions are the least interesting part of my job, and often the most misleading. Every now and then, you discover a nugget that adds something. But in general, you get the schtick and spin, larded with a few anecdotes to make you feel flattered to be included in the salons of power. And what still amazes me is how deferent most of even the A-list journos are (with a few glorious exceptions). In fact, the definition of an A-list journalist in Washington is the person who is chummiest and closest to the people they cover. They have risen to the top in part because they know what questions the powerful really don't want to answer - and decide not to ask them.
This is painfully characteristic of the media's coverage of Turkey.
Case in point. Here's Hugh Pope's take on the IHH, the Turkish NGO behind the Mavi Marmara. Here's mine. Compare and contrast. Instructive, no?
By the way, here's our video about the same subject. If you're patient, you can also look at the unedited footage of the interviews in question. As you can see, Hugh either decided not to ask the obvious follow-up questions, or didn't print the answers.
But that's not all. Hugh writes:
Erdogan's rhetoric may often be pugnacious and out of date. But his ideology is not devoted to Israel's destruction. Just over two years ago he entertained Israel prime minister Ehud Olmert to a long dinner in his official Ankara residence. Naively perhaps, but certainly sincerely, Erdogan believed that he had brought Israel and Syria to the brink of face-to-face talks or even a peace deal. Yet just days later, and having given no warning, Olmert launched Israel's winter 2009 assault on Gaza. This was the turning point, not the outburst against President Shimon Peres in Davos a few weeks later.
Now, I've seen that anecdote everywhere in the Western media. It gets repeated over and over again, as if it's a verified fact. And I know exactly where it comes from. It comes from two senior figures in the AKP, both very smooth guys who always tells this story to journalists in cozy little salon settings, off the record, in precisely these words. You get tea and cookies, they tell you this story and a few others like it that just keep getting repeated, verbatim, in the press.
I don't understand why journalists are so credulous about this stuff. Obviously the AKP has an interest in spinning it this way, but that sure doesn't mean it's what really happened or that it's the most salient point. Indeed, I'd say one of the sources of this story has a massive credibility problem on the face of it, because he followed this anecdote when I last heard it by denying the genocide in Darfur, or at least proposing that it paled in comparison with the crimes against humanity being perpetrated in Gaza. (I notice that part never makes it into the press, even though I know at least a dozen other foreign journalists heard him say this.)
Watch for variants on this story, you'll see it everywhere--Erdogan was so personally hurt, because he doesn't smoke, in fact he hates smoke, but Olmert does, and he'd sent his aide out to get Olmert a cigar!
We all know that if we name these sources, we'll lose access. It would be unethical, anyway; I agreed to "off-the-record" like everyone else. But could we at least not represent this story as anything but obvious spin? I keep seeing this kind of thing: Western journalists endorsing and repeating, word-for-word, the lines fed to them by the government here without asking, "Is this actually true? Does it fit with the rest of the evidence? What motivation might this person have for telling me this?"
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Re: Journalists, lies and videotape: You be the judge
This is, indeed, fascinating to me. I only covered the lowly sports beat in my day, but there was certainly an understanding that if you wrote a story, you got quotes (on or off the record) from all angles. For example, if a baseball player complained about something, you asked another player with whom he was less friendly what he thought of the topic. Then, you talked to the manager, then, perhaps, the hitting coach. Then, you'd ask someone on another team. Not only did you get much closer to the real story, but you made your own story more interesting to read. Win-win, right? Is it possible that there's no way to access other "angles" of a story in this complex international arena? Or is it that these reporters are lazy? (I'm guessing that's your view.) Do you have an advantage by living in Istanbul, day after day, that another journalist working out of, say, DC or Paris, couldn't replicate?
Re: Journalists, lies and videotape: You be the judge
I don't think it's laziness. It doesn't seem remotely plausible to suggest that someone like Hugh Pope is lazy. I frankly can't understand it.
May '10
Re: Journalists, lies and videotape: You be the judge
Perhaps it's a business decision, prioritizing profit over truth. Most consumers are more likely to be interested in a story when the sources are "important" regardless of the content.
Also, few people are regularly willing to stand up to friends. I expect reporters develop genuine friendships with officials after not too many meetings (especially since so many journalists actually admire the politics of people like Chavez). It's very human to prioritize personal relationships over corporate loyalty and ethics.