Opinion Saagar Enjeti: Media CAUGHT Letting Biden WH EDIT THEIR STORIES

[Teppodama]

https://www.politico.com/newsletter...l-is-on-background-with-quote-approval-492792

If you’ve read a quote from an administration official in a newspaper or a wire story recently, there’s a good chance that the White House communications team had an opportunity to edit it first.

That’s because the Biden White House frequently demands that interviews with administration officials be conducted on grounds known colloquially as “background with quote approval,” according to five reporters who cover the White House for outlets other than POLITICO.

In practice, that means the information from an interview can be used in the story, but in order for the person’s name to be attached to a quote, the reporter must transcribe the quotes they want and then send them to the communications team to approve, veto or edit them.

West Wing Playbook must make a confession here. We have participated in such arrangements too. The other week, the White House asked for background with quote approval for an interview with White House communications director KATE BEDINGFIELD for a profile about speechwriter VINAY REDDY. Close to deadline and with our editors giving us side-eye about filing late, we agreed.

The practice allows the White House an extra measure of control as it tries to craft press coverage. At its best, quote approval allows sources to speak more candidly about their work. At its worst, it gives public officials a way to obfuscate or screen their own admissions and words.

The Biden White House isn’t the first to employ the practice. Many reporters say it’s reminiscent of the tightly controlled Obama White House. The Trump White House used it, too.

But reporters say Trump’s team did so less frequently than Biden’s team — which also used the tactic during the campaign — and a number of current White House reporters have become increasingly frustrated by what they see as its abuse. “The rule treats them like coddled Capitol Hill pages and that’s not who they are or the protections they deserve,” said one reporter.

“Every reporter I work with has encountered the same practice,” said another.

But, as is often the case with the unwieldy White House press corps, there is a collective action problem. Reporters are reluctant to say no to using background with quote approval because it could put them at a disadvantage with their competitors. “The only way the press has the power to push back against this is if we all band together,” said the first reporter. At least one White House reporting team has been talking internally about reaching out to other outlets to push the Biden team to stop the practice.

“Have any reporters talked about mutinying?” the second reporter asked us. “If you start fomenting an insurrection, keep me updated.”

Reached for comment, White House spokesperson MICHAEL GWIN asked to go off the record.

Gwin later texted a statement from press secretary JEN PSAKI. "We would welcome any outlet banning the use of anonymous background quotes that attack people personally or speak to internal processes from people who don’t even work in the Administration,” she said. “At the same time, we make policy experts available in a range of formats to ensure context and substantive detail is available for stories. If outlets are not comfortable with that attribution for those officials they of course don’t need to utilize those voices."

PETER BAKER, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, said he remembers the practice beginning with reporters going back to sources and asking if a blind quote could be moved on the record. “What started out as an effort by reporters to get more transparency, to get people on the record more, to use fewer blind quotes, then got taken by the White House, each successive White House, as a way of taking control of your story,” he said.

“So instead of transparency, suddenly, the White House realized: ‘Hey, this quote approval thing is a cool thing. We can now control what is in their stories by refusing to allow them use anything without our approval. And it's a pernicious, insidious, awful practice that reporters should resist.” Baker conceded that he’s no purist. He has agreed to quote approval before but believes reporters ought to push back more.

At times, news outlets have tried to fight back. The New York Times barred the practice in 2012 after one of its own reporters, JEREMY PETERS, wrote a story about how quote approval had become “standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all midlevel aides in Chicago and at the White House.”

“The practice risks giving readers a mistaken impression that we are ceding too much control over a story to our sources,” the Times memo on the subject read. “In its most extreme form, it invites meddling by press aides and others that goes far beyond the traditional negotiations between reporter and source over the terms of an interview.”

The Times told West Wing Playbook that the 2012 memo remains their policy but they declined to comment on how rigorously they enforce it or if their reporters have always followed it when dealing with the Biden White House.

The White House team has “repeatedly objected to background interviews with quote approval” since Biden took office, DANIELLE RHOADES HA, a Times spokesperson, wrote in an email to West Wing Playbook, adding that The Times “has succeeded at times in getting interviews put on the record.”

In 2012, the Associated Press also told Poynter that the outlet didn’t permit quote approval and that their reporters don’t allow sources to say, “I want those three sentences you want to use sent over to me to be put through my rinse cycle.” The AP’s JULIE PACE told West Wing Playbook that remains their policy. She noted that the Poynter article also said “that AP reporters can conduct interviews on background and then negotiate to get certain parts on the record.”

The 2012 New York Times article on quote approval stirred debate, but Peters himself isn’t sure it changed much. In a phone call, he said that “after the story ran it didn’t take that long for me to notice that operatives were asking for quote approval once again.”

WH flexing that media control. Hmmm, can't say I'm surprised.

 

[HereticBD]

Isn't this just business as usual though?

 

[shankmcgank]

InB4 the usual suspects show up to pretend the MSM isn't the propaganda wing of the Democrat party.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Whenever I see Krystal and Saagar in these clips I think of the incel-Stacy meme

 

[Teppodama]

Isn't this just business as usual though?

It's one thing to get softball questions from a friendly press corp or even to state certain topics are off limits for questions but something altogether different for the WH to actually preview and vet stories or elements of stories prior to release.

 

[White Whale]

Isn’t this called authoritarianism?

 

[Hadron90]

This guy has been delivering good stories, but he is just not a good on-screen personality. Maybe its just the writing, but he comes across as so fake and stilted. He needs to emote more, and the writing should be more conversational. Like look at Tucker, he is still just reading from a teleprompter, but he delivers things in a much more natural fashion. He asks questions, he repeats points for emphasis, he cracks jokes and makes off-hand comments.

 

[Teppodama]

This guy has been delivering good stories, but he is just not a good on-screen personality. Maybe its just the writing, but he comes across as so fake and stilted. He needs to emote more, and the writing should be more conversational. Like look at Tucker, he is still just reading from a teleprompter, but he delivers things in a much more natural fashion. He asks questions, he repeats points for emphasis, he cracks jokes and makes off-hand comments.

Tucker is unfortunately that guy that if you found him passed out at a party you'd go dip your sack in paint and leave a teabag imprint on his forehead to wake up to the next morning. You almost couldn't help yourself. It would be a compulsion of sorts,

 

[Hadron90]

Tucker is unfortunately that guy that if you found him passed out at a party you'd go dip your sack in paint and leave a teabag imprint on his forehead to wake up to the next morning.

No you wouldn't. Tucker is that guy at the party who everyone would flock to and adore, while you seethed in the corner playing Pokemon on your Nintendo Switch.

 

[Teppodama]

No you wouldn't. Tucker is that guy at the party who everyone would flock to and adore, while you seethed in the corner playing Pokemon on your Nintendo Switch.

You're probably right on everything but the Pokemon and Switch. And really, I have nothing against Tucker. Just something about him every now and then invokes a hazing instinct I guess. Good naturedly of course.

 

[Hadron90]

You're probably right on everything but the Pokemon and Switch. And really, I have nothing against Tucker. Just something about him every now and then invokes a hazing instinct I guess. Good naturedly of course.

Tucker is obviously a frat boy through and through, and like Steve Stiffler is seems to be someone who is reluctant to let his frat days go, but he is also obviously extremely charismatic. I'm just using him as someone that Saagar could learn from. Saagar is doing a job with story selection, but he needs more organic writing and he needs to be less robotic. I'm offering the criticism in good faith; I want to see him succeed.

 

[BIKES!]

Nazi party going to engage in Nazi tactics? Color me surprised

 

[Scrody]

Tucker is unfortunately that guy that if you found him passed out at a party you'd go dip your sack in paint and leave a teabag imprint on his forehead to wake up to the next morning. You almost couldn't help yourself. It would be a compulsion of sorts,

 

[Jack V Savage]

Nazi party going to engage in Nazi tactics? Color me surprised

Trying to overthrow democracy, and stuff like this and this = fine and dandy. Expert sources demanding to review their quotes as a condition of going on the record = literally Nazis.

 

[Snubnoze707]

This guy has been delivering good stories, but he is just not a good on-screen personality. Maybe its just the writing, but he comes across as so fake and stilted. He needs to emote more, and the writing should be more conversational. Like look at Tucker, he is still just reading from a teleprompter, but he delivers things in a much more natural fashion. He asks questions, he repeats points for emphasis, he cracks jokes and makes off-hand comments.

Tucker has been doing this for 20 years, Saagar has been doing this for like a year and a half. Experience matters. He'll get there, just needs to get smoother with his delivery and stumble on words less.

 

[jefferz]

Isn't this just business as usual though?

It’s amazing how many things were forgotten in just 4 years.

 

[tonni]

Trying to overthrow democracy, and stuff like this and this = fine and dandy. Expert sources demanding to review their quotes as a condition of going on the record = literally Nazis.

The democrats are the commie nazi muslim LGBT party. Everyone with one brain knows it

 

[Clifford_Harris]

lol so basically crying over saying "this is off the record" vs "this is on the record"

 

[Proud American]

The media is the enemy of the people of America

 

[Proud American]

It’s amazing how many things were forgotten in just 4 years.

The media DOES NOT DO THIS with republican.

republicans are the enemy of the media. Democrats are allies working together with the media