The evil of access

Washington Monthly, Nov, 2007 by Charles Peters

The news that the Clintons acted to suppress a critical article about her staff that was to appear in GQ is just the tip of the iceberg. I have heard similar stories from other media sources. I don't blame the Clintons as much as I do the reporters who tremble at the thought of being denied access to the next Clinton White House. What I cannot understand is that I can't recall a single case of a reporter, newspaper, magazine, or network being hurt by a White House cold shoulder. Does anyone really think that the reporter who did the GQ story, Josh Green, has had his career injured by this episode?

Recall the best-known example of enterprising coverage of Washington, All the President's Men. Woodward and Bernstein had no access to White House big shots. They got the story by working the periphery. As for access journalism in general, Art Levine once asked in these pages if Nazi Germany would have best been covered by interviewing Himmler and Goebbels.