Better Editing, Please

This story consists primarily of Republicans attacking Scott McClellan for writing a book about his experiences as White House spokesman. As presented by Yahoo, at least, the story waits til the 11th graf to let McClellan say anything; it goes to the 19th graf before we hear from a Democratic ex-spokesman, who gets 2 1/2 grafs to semi-defend McClellan before going right back to one of the Republican ex-spokesmen quoted earlier.

I don't know if McClellan's account is accurate but I do know that this is an amazingly unbalanced story that should have been fixed before it saw the light of day.

Subheads at the Forefront

The White House is angry about, of all things, a subhead in today's New York Times:

Main:
Bush lawyers
Discussed Fate
Of CIA Tapes

subhead:
White House Role Was
Wider Than It Said

Here's the complaint.


The New York Times' inference that there is an effort to mislead in this matter is pernicious and troubling, and we are formally requesting that NYT correct the sub-headline of this story," she said. I think she means "implication."

Here's a more detailed explanation of what the issue is.
Greg Mitchell weighs in, too.

Here's the Times' correction, which is based on a pretty narrow element of the headline (Depends on "it"). Sounds to me as if it's a clarification, not a correction and of course, the TV dopes are going crazy, not distinguishing between the subhead and the story itself.

Corrections
The subheading with a front-page headline on Wednesday for an article about discussions between four top White House lawyers and the Central Intelligence Agency over whether to destroy videotapes showing secret interrogations of members of Al Qaeda referred imprecisely to the White House’s position thus far on the matter. While Bush administration officials have acknowledged some discussions leading up to the destruction of the tapes in November 2005, as the article noted, the White House itself has not officially said anything on the subject, so its role was not “wider than it said.”

Influencing the Messengers

This is a rather disturbing Washington Post story about a White House policy of trying to influence journalists and what we saw of protests at events involving George Bush.

... "The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site."

Advance teams are advised not to worry if protesters are not visible to the president or cameras: "If it is determined that the media will not see or hear them and that they pose no potential disruption to the event, they can be ignored. On the other hand, if the group is carrying signs, trying to shout down the President, or has the potential to cause some greater disruption to the event, action needs to be taken immediately to minimize the demonstrator's effect."