Quote approval furore forces US news media to rethink 'unacceptable' practice

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

News organisations in the US are reviewing their policies on quote approval after the New York Times blew the whistle on the draconian methods deployed by campaign officials to control their media messages.

The New York Times and the LA Times have confirmed to the Guardian that they are reviewing the practice of allowing reporters to submit quotes for approval by the Obama and Romney camps before publication.

Reuters said it opposed the "wholly unacceptable" practice, as did the Associated Press. Web publisher Buzzfeed said it tried to avoid it, and RealClearPolitics said it was discussing the issue with staff.

The pushback on quote approval followed a front-page article in Monday's New York Times, revealing that the Obama and Romney campaigns frequently insist on reading and redacting quotes given by interviewees before permission is given to publish.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/18/quote-approval-us-news-media-rethink

[Laurian]

1. What the hell is the purpose of the media if they allow "quote approval"?

What a crock. Another reason to not give traditional media any allegiance or credit.

[harun]

9. To make a profit

[Laurian]

12. Yep, how could I forget that.......

[DesertDiamond]

21. To make money for the corporations that own them. And to fool the pulic.

[MindMover]

2. LMAO, they better have more than one person reading over everything ..

that any of there spokespersons says..... because it will be posted in my laughing points post everyday.....

[PatrynXX]

3. oh we'll just start reading the redacted stuff

Good Morning Vietnam!!!!

[MindMover]

4. Thank you for helping me remember ..... especially since I served there ...

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. Goddammit, it's "FUROR", not "FURORE"

I hate spelling and grammatical errors (unless it's an obvious and innocent typo, or a purposeful misspelling for stylistic impact), but errors in PUBLISHED material---and a fucking headline, no less!---drive me right up the wall.

And, by the way, innocent typos cease to be innocent if there are more than one in a short published piece, and more than three in a book-length published piece.

GODDAMMMMMITTTTTTT!!!

[DURHAM D]

7. Isn't that proper British spelling?

[BlancheSplanchnik]

8. hrrmmmmm.....

uh oh, I may have to hang my righteous head in shame......


let me check.....

r'uh-r'oh.....




well, on the bright side, an unexpected benefit stemming from my self-humiliation is that I found THIS:

Related to FURORE

Synonyms: ado, alarums and excursions, ballyhoo, blather, bluster, bobbery, bother, bustle, clatter, clutter [chiefly dialect], coil, corroboree [Australian], disturbance, do [chiefly dialect], foofaraw, fun, furor, commotion, fuss, helter-skelter, hoo-ha (also hoo-hah), hoopla, hubble-bubble, hubbub, hullabaloo, hurly, hurly-burly, hurricane, hurry, hurry-scurry (or hurry-skurry), kerfuffle [chiefly British], moil, pandemonium, pother, row, ruckus, ruction, rumpus, shindy, splore [Scottish], squall, stew, stir, storm, to-do, tumult, turmoil, uproar, welter, whirl, williwaw, zoo

alarums and excursions!

[CJCRANE]

14. "Hullabaloo"...

is my favorite word...followed by "kerfuffle".

You've got some good ones there, it was definitely worth all the ballyhoo, blather, bluster, bobbery, bother and bustle, and that's not easy for me to say!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

25. I kind of like "ruction"

for some reason!

[MADem]

22. I was feeling that WILLIWAW word when I saw it! That's a rich one!

It also means a great WIND of sorts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williwaw

So, I guess if one cuts a massive stinker, one can say "Ewww, do pardon my williwaw!"

[BlancheSplanchnik]

23. bwAGHH! Masticated cereal on my monitor now.

J'accuse!



!!

[MADem]

26. Now Blanche, you know what some folks are thinking, here?

They're thinking I'm talking willywaw, and you're talking mastication, and they are thinking....

"No sex threads!!"

[BlancheSplanchnik]

30. dammit, now you just trashed my Laptop too......

lucky I don't log into DU on my cellphone....




though the "Vibrate" function might make the mobile app worthwhile.....

[frylock]

27. quit your whingeing!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/120416424

[BlancheSplanchnik]

31. I'm carping

burble, blubber, blurble




ok, ok.....I've been single too long


Ohhhh, reaaaalllly? Getting desperate, are we?

dramatic carp is dramatic.

[AnuAnzu]

10. Save the furor

Furore is a correct spelling of furor.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

11. please see my second post.

[Igel]

18. Yeah, these things happen.

More than once I've scurried off to verify something I was outraged about. I often learn something. I seldom pounce these days before checking my sources.

I used to do a lot more pouncing. Now I pounce mostly on premature pouncers, but it's not an outraged pouncing.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

24. I certainly pounced prematurely, but

I do proffer my piteous exculpatory pleas post haste!

(turn off sound):

&feature=colike

[apnu]

6. Holy crap! Does that mean the stupid quotes out of the Romney camp are "approved"?

I wonder what was redacted?

"Etch-a-Sketch"
"learn to be an american"
"retroactive retirement"

All approved?

[Scuba]

13. No shit.

[Igel]

15. In some cases.

If it's by a reporter of some newspapers, yes: The reporter either got or said he got permission for the quote. That can be given ahead of time, at the end of the interview, or by asking that the quotes be approved.

There's no need to sumbit just the quote you're going to use. You want to submit 5 pages of transcripts and then truncate "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" to "we have . . . to fear . . . fear itself" that's up to the reporter and editor. It's unethical to change the meaning of a quote, but we're talking journalists and politicians so ethics don't really enter into it.

[Igel]

16. This has a history.

And knowing the history and context can sometimes help.

At first blush it's just a bit of catering, of making sure your sources continue to supply material.

But well over a decade ago there was a court ruling that quotes didn't need to be quotations. As long as what's said is something that was likely to have been said, as long as the quote was something that the reporter believed that the person who has the quote attributed to him would have said, it was okay. Freedom of the press was protected when the press wasn't "chilled" by the possibility of a bad quote or misquote.

This was a case in which the reporter made up quotes. There was no evidence the person cited ever said what he was quoted as saying. It wasn't a slam-dunk that he would have said it. But it was a restating of a possible interpretation of something that he said. So it was protected.

Result: Every politician, every businessperson, every person who had a reputation to preserve and not an always adoring relationship with both the reporter and the editor of the newspaper you were talking to required advance approval or they'd be quiet. It was okay to make up a quote not quite given in a public speech, but you could always point to transcripts of public events. Private interviews? Ha!

No need to get prior approval or allow prior approval of quotes from other sources or from public events. The other source quotes are the responsibility of the other sources. Public events are public.

[PSPS]

17. LOL. More Soviet-era Pravda masquerading as our "fourth estate."

[Dustlawyer]

19. The media Is under the control of corporations. Example:

if you travel the Gulf Coast this summer, you will see a media blitz that BP has been doing ever since they blew up the Deepwater Horizon. One minute you see a commercial showing BP is sponsoring the U.S. Olympic team (I repeat, BRITISH Petroleum is sponsoring the UNITED STATES Olympic team) and the next is the one that has been playing for the last year urging people to "come on down to the Gulf Coast..." Why would they air a commercial over and over urging people to come down to the Gulf coast, ON THE GULF COAST! Every local TV station, newspaper, and radio station is making huge money with BP as their largest advertiser. Funny thing though, you never see, hear, or read a story that has negative information about BP and what the victims are going through from them, except a few nationally syndicated shows or stories. Anderson Cooper has not followed up! They will not bite the hand that feeds them. Meanwhile, the rest of the country thinks that the "$20,000,000,000 fund" took care of things. There never was a $20,000,000,000 fund to start with. BP promised to run the money, so much a quarter, into a fund to pay the victims and the clean up until they had spent the twenty billion. They never had an account with 20 billion in it reserved for the victims. They spent 6 billion for victims and clean up before they stopped. They have received 8 billion from co-defendants. Their new and improved class action fund has just started, do you think the media will report any of this? All they do is lie and manipulate the public to do what the powers that be want! Mitt wants to be the man at the controls! What a power trip! Isn't that what W said the other day!

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. Thank you thank you thank you for telling it like it is.

Living down here is like living in a dream...we KNOW the Gulf is ruined and the people are getting sick and the fish are dying..
but rarely is there any public acknowlegement of it.
The tourists come and see clean white sand, not knowing that, at 5 am, BP paid crews are running huge machines along the beaches to remove the tarballs which STILL are washing ashore. These machines are sort of like giant cat litter scoopers.
A LOT of BP money went to Chambers of Commerce and various city agencies for PR and white washing of the facts.

When I have out of state company who want to see the famous white sand beaches, I tell them they can go down there alone and at their own risk. I will stay at home with my sad memories of pre-Katrina, pre-BP, pre-casino Redneck Riviera times.

[Odin2005]

28. We get those BP gulf comercials here in Fargo.

[Odin2005]

29. The MSM is the propaganda wing of the corps that own them.