Press Corps At The Bidens: Are Journalism Ethics Getting Supersoaked By Rahm?

Now that the controversy over the failure of the White House corps to criticize Helen Thomas has temporarily blown over, there is a new journalism controversy facing the DC press: should journalists go to the Biden’s house for a picnic and be Super Soaked by Rahm Emanuel.

The controversy centers around a “beach party” held at the Bidens’ home at the Naval Observatory where journalists were invited to spend the day with White House staff and the Bidens for a kid-friendly event.  It’s the kind of event that happens a few times a year in a company town like Washington, D.C., where the press and the administration hang out for a casual break from the grind.

For Glenn Greenwald, however, the events occur too often and show too cozy a relationship between the media and the administration.  Responding to a post  by Marc Ambinder, Salon’s Greenwald said the spectacle of journalists chatting with White House officials at a party “helpfully reveals what our nation’s leading “journalists” really are:  desperate worshipers of political power who are far more eager to be part of it and to serve it than to act as adversarial checks against it — and who, in fact, are Royal Court Spokespeople regardless of which monarch is ruling.”

Ouch.

While not directly mentioning Greenwald, The Atlantic’s Ambinder anticipated the criticism acknowledging “these aren’t ordinary afternoons, and the very idea that a journalist would accept a slice of watermelon from the Vice President strikes many a critical activist as criminally insane — an example of the cozy relationships that exist between journalists and their sources, an example of how the oppositional role of the press has been compromised by people in power.”

Ambinder defended his decision to go by saying “a bunch of really good, hardened, news-breaking, interest-accountable holding reporters are in fact able to share more comfortable moments with people they cover.”

Progressive commentators piled-on the beach party with Daily Kos‘s Susan Gardner complaining journalists were “a class totally unworthy of the First Amendment protections the Founders created for them. America deserves so much better.” Matthew Yglesias chimed in that reporters can get “captured by their sources” while officials become “unduly concerned about the press coverage they get.” Maybe Yglesias’ bosses at Obama’s favorite think tank and farm team for the administration–the Center for American Progress–can mention that next time they are invited to a State Dinner.

It is a perennial question that arises every year during press dinner season–capped by the White House Correspondents Dinner–where people wonder whether reporters should be yukking it up with the president and members of Congress in the evening after being adversaries during the day. The New York Times–whose staff was at the Biden beach party–does not participate in nerd prom.

(Full disclosure.  During the Bush administration, I attended four “nerd proms” and took mid-level members of the administration at least twice.  I met Justice Antonin Scalia once and learned that my guest had a weakness for the Food Network. Alas, I’ve never been to the White House or the Vice President’s House, except on a tour.)

So who wins between Ambinder and Greenwald?  Arguably, it’s a draw.

Greenwald is rightly concerned that these kinds of cozy events look bad for people who think journalists shouldn’t be so friendly with the people they cover.  It does give the appearance of bias and impropriety and appearances are as big a worry as actual bias and impropriety.  In addition, Greenwald is right to be concerned that journalists can become so enamored by the attention from D.C.’s ruling class that they may fail to ask the tough questions for fear of not getting an invite to the next hoedown.

On the other hand, the idea that Ambinder or any reporter is suddenly going to say nice things about Emanuel and Biden just because they noshed hot dogs together on a hot, June Saturday doesn’t really understand how journalism or Washington works. Just as attorneys can be civil with opposing counsel, journalists can be civil with the people they cover without it meaning they won’t ask hard questions the next day.

Of course, relationships can become too close and journalists can be too friendly with the people they cover.  But a single beach party with the kids or an evening in tuxedos and evening dresses with administration officials isn’t likely going to compromise the adversarial relationship between journalists and the people they cover.

Would journalists be better off if they never had friendly interactions with the people they cover? If Ambinder runs into Emanuel at Ben’s Chili Bowl, is he supposed to turn on his heels lest it be viewed as too friendly an interaction? Where exactly is the line?

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.