POLL: Rove off the record--confidential source or PR client?

[yurbud]

On Democracy Now, I just heard a discussion of why the press didn't do more on the Rove/Plame case before the election given that it could have effected the outcome, and the New York Times representative continued to frame it as protecting confidential sources, but in cases like this, when the off the record source is advancing the goals of the administration, isn't the relationship between reporter and source more like PR flak and client?

Very often, PR firms advances the agendas of their clients by hiding one or both parts of the relationship, the client and/or the PR firm, as they attempt to shape events and opinion.

In cases like Rove/Plame, it seems that administration officials speak off the record not to avoid retaliation from their boss, but from the public because the information is specious, the motive for releasing it suspect, or it's a trial balloon. Only the last seems marginally defensible for the reporter to go along with the sources desire to remain anonymous.

Why should reporters give this kind of informal flakking the same protection as whistleblowers?


Most importantly, does the relationship between Karl Rove & Novak, Judith Miller et al look more like a reporter and confidential source or PR flak and client?

[rfranklin]

1. Judith Miller was a PR flak for the Bush administration....

and she is protecting them and herself from criminal prosecution for perjury and treason.

[A Simple Game]

2. That seems like an awfully short post

to be able to say it all, but it did.

Concise and correct, can't beat a winning combination.