Quote Approval
Tuesday 11 September 2012 - Filed under Uncategorized
Quote approval, the practice of having to submit quotes to the source for his or her approval before an article is published, is anathema to free speech and freedom of the press. A free press does not ask for permission in order to publish he information they’ve gathered. Complying with it suggests that, in this case, the press is little more than the PR wing of government. It’s pure propaganda, and a fucking abomination. Any journalist to agree to it should be pointed and laughed at for having abrogated his professional responsibilities to his readers, and anything written should be viewed with extreme skepticism.
Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” was granted extraordinary access to President Obama for his latest article in Vanity Fair.
But with that access came one major condition.
Like other journalists who write about Washington and presidential politics, Mr. Lewis said that he had to submit to the widespread but rarely disclosed practice of quote approval.
During a discussion at Lincoln Center on Monday night with Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, Mr. Lewis volunteered to the audience that as a condition of cooperating with his story, the White House insisted on signing off on the quotes that would appear.
Lewis’ job is not to help the president cover his ass in the event he says something stupid,1 and helping him do just that via submitting to quote approval is a sure sign that he’s more interested in maintaining his access to Obama than he is with reporting the truth to his readers. It was a career move, not the move of a journalist with integrity. He ought be ashamed of himself, and the dangerous precedent he’s set for journalists to gain access to presidents in the future.
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1. Off teleprompter, Obama is well known to say some of the dumbest shit you’ve ever heard.
2012-09-11 » madlibertarianguy