:: Ponies on Steroids

Democratic White House will be purer than driven snow

I really don't have the time to do this, but I feel compelled to share the following exchange I had over at Shakesville. Since the main Canaries have all worked for years in the political / advocacy arena, I think its of passing interest.

Melissa McEwen, a blogger whom I enjoy a great deal, posted the following tidbit (and I totally sympathize with her):

"Well, certainly."—Former White House spokesbot Scott McClellan, when asked by Chris Matthews if the Bush administration used Fox commentators as spokespeople by feeding them talking points.

Anyone who's been paying attention knows that Fox News is the propaganda arm of the Bush White House, but it's nice to have such blunt confirmation.

I'm particularly ill-tempered today, so when I read that I immediately thought - oh no. Please let's not have progressives start demonizing talking points the way the campaign finance folks demonized so many routine aspects of political advocacy - PAC donations, for example.

So I sent off the following quick response, not thinking I was saying anything controversial:

"...Plenty of "news" people were using Dem talking points too, for a while. Map Olbermann against Axelrod and you get a perfect fit.

So is it wrong that Fox and the White House are in a permanent liplock because politicians and these pseudo-journalists shouldn't have that close a relationship as a matter of principle, or is wrong because we don't agree with the content? Because any Dem, candidate or elected, would replicate this relationship in a heartbeat and call it success.

Thus a word of caution - stigmatize the closeness between Fox and the White House now and you're just preparing the ground for conservatives to argue that the (Obama) White House is using CNN (or Olbemann, etc.) as Pravda, etc., because the WH is sending CNN press communications and there are similarities between what the WH says and what CNN is reporting."

I was very surprised to receive the following response (slightly abridged):

"...if they are repeating a WH statement without accreditation, then it is -- as has been pointed out -- propaganda. All they have to do is attribute the source to the WH -- or the Obama campaign -- and it becomes what it is: a talking point.

Sorry, I don't buy the assumption that the Democrats would do the same thing as the Bush administration. I'm too old to be that cynical."

Its cynical to assume that a Democrat would try to cultivate a media outlet in the hope they would run the Dem's talking points more or less verbatim? This would never happen? Its kind of what I was afraid of - routine press relations takes on the aspect of something shady. One edge of the double-edges sword is being sharpened... so I responded (slightly abridged):

"Everyone - conservative, progressive or other - who does this kind of work hopes to see their press materials repeated verbatim by a friendly journalist or media outlet. That is considered a marker of success - regardless of political ideology. And everyone cultivates friendly relationships with specific journos, producers or media outlets in the hope this will happen. But that's not my point.

My point is simply that the shoe is about to be on the other foot and the meme will be that the Obama White House is using (fill in the blank journo or media outlet) as a propaganda tool because the WH is sending out 'talking points." The reason conservatives will say this is because they want reporters to defensively knee-jerk criticize the Dem WH in every single story just so the reporter / media outlet can show that they're not behaving like, ahem, tools."

... realizing full well that I was now making too much of an off-hand thought, but I didn't want to be misunderstood. Among the responses I got were (again, slightly abridged):

"... the entire problem goes away if the talking heads merely say, "The White House said today that..." or whoever else dropped the talking points into your journalistic lap. That gives both the data and the source, making critical analysis of the statement more complete. It isn't the distribution of the material that is the problem, it's the pretense that it is original work by the media person in question.

And I'm confident that if Obama or any other Democrat were to do what this White House has done, the Shakers here would call him/her out on it."

and

And I'm confident that if Obama or any other Democrat were to do what this White House has done, the Shakers here would call him/her out on it.

That goes for me, too.

Well, I left that alone, despite the fact that those responses really surprised me. The idea that the Democrats would never do so dastardly a deed as forming a tight relationship with a reporter or media outlet... and even that the deed is dastardly... where did this come from?

Yes, Fox is evil. Yes, the White House is evil. Yes, the collusion between them is evil. But that's because of who they are and what they are saying. If CNN were working that closely with an Obama White House to, for example, raise awareness about climate change and explain the benefits of, I don't know, the Kyoto Treaty because the U.S. was about to sign on... we'd see it as acting in the public's interest. We'd see it as a positive development. Not because there is something good about the working relationship, but because the message is important and good.

I know the wingnuts will complain, regardless, that CNN or the NY Times is the propaganda arm of a Democratic White house. But do we have to position ourselves now in a way that will be diametrically opposite the one we'll adopt should the executive branch change parties? Do we have to be the ones who place a stigma on the term "talking points" just in time to be hoisted on that petard? And how did anyone miss the fact that both presidential campaigns did daily conference calls and regularly sent around talking points, and one campaign saw their messages routinely picked up verbatim by certain media figures?

Its a minor point, I know. No big deal. Just strange to me... since the utterly rude awakening of the primary process, I'm noticing more and more the ways Dem criticisms of GOP candidates and policies are hypocritical.