While it wasn't his intention, today's column from David Brooks says a lot more of what's wrong with journalism than it does about the "culture of exposure" that Brooks' sobs about:
The most interesting part of my job is that I get to observe powerful people at close quarters ... So every few weeks I find myself on the receiving end of little burst of off-the-record trash talk ...
Those of us in the press corps have to figure out how to treat this torrent of private kvetching. [...]
General McChrystal was excellent at his job. He had outstanding relations with the White House and entirely proper relationships with his various civilian partners in the State Department and beyond. He set up a superb decision-making apparatus that deftly used military and civilian expertise.
But McChrystal, like everyone else, kvetched. And having apparently missed the last 50 years of cultural history, he did so on the record, in front of a reporter. And this reporter, being a product of the culture of exposure, made the kvetching the center of his magazine profile.
By putting the kvetching in the magazine, the reporter essentially took run-of-the-mill complaining and turned it into a direct challenge to presidential authority. He took a successful general and made it impossible for President Obama to retain him.
Michael Hastings, the freelance reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine who decided that he'd practice journalism rather than bask in the glow of the powerful responded:
He wrote the following tweet: "david brooks to young reporters: don't report what you see or hear, or you might upset the powerful." And another: "question for david brooks: does he really think WH and McC had good relationships? signs point to lack of listening to kvetching!" Here's one more: "question 2 to mr. brooks: how much time has he spent listening to the troops kvetch in a warzone? just askin'."
"Hard not to respond to this without going back to an old saying. I'm paraphrasing: Reporting is what someone somewhere doesn't want known," Hastings wrote. "Everything else is advertising."
"That's more or less how I feel," Hastings continued. "I find it very strange that the response from a few of the pundits has been: Journalists should do more to protect the powerful. Seems to me they're already pretty well protected for the most part."
Amen.