Recently, Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi wrote a lengthy story on DC couples who work in media and politics. The story revealed one of this city’s not-so-well-kept secrets: In this town, the media literally are in bed with the government. Farhi’s piece outed some of those government-media duos – NPR’s Ari Shapiro is the spouse of Michael Gottlieb, on the staff of the White House Counsel. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is married to ABC News’s Claire Shipman. Washington Post reporter Sari Horowitz is the wife of Health and Human Services General Counsel William B. Schultz. Vice President Biden’s communications director Shailagh Murray is married to Wall Street Journal political reporter Neil King.
Farhi himself also coyly confesses, without naming names or specifying the nature of the relationship, that he sometimes writes about CBS news and is related to an employee at the network.
Farhi’s critique focuses on how well these couples manage conflicts of interest. But that’s not really the problem. Reporters by and large do pretty well avoiding favoritism covering the news. They adjust assignments, and are pretty scrupulous about not covering any issue on which their loved ones have direct responsibility.
The problem goes much deeper. It is the inbred Washington culture where big media and big government mingle in a seamless minuet that creates a plagiarism of the spirit. No, I don’t mean the plagiarism that happens when one reporter literally copies the words and opinions of others. This appropriation is much larger and more fundamental. The journalists who live and work together in the tight little cocoon of DC politics are seeing the world in the same way, chasing down the same fragments of news, and no one is challenging anybody’s assumptions.
Think of it. The elite who comprise the Washington press corps — those reporters for major media outlets who cover the White House, the federal government and Congress and who are regular contributors to the weekly news shows — by and large are well paid and comfortable. High-profile reporters send their kids to the same private schools that also are attended by the children of senior government officials. They run into each other at the same parties. They live in the same neighborhoods. They dine at the same restaurants.
None of this is wrong. But it is severely limiting. Journalists used to be working class stiffs, outsiders whose press passes would only get them pressed against the window of power, not inside the halls. They had empathy for the “little guy” because they emerged from the same class. Journalism was one of the few jobs around that required no formal college degree. To those who lacked the right pedigree or social skills, journalism rewarded hard work and cleverness with decent-paying jobs that were enjoyable and stimulating.
As much as journalism might be in financial distress nationwide, the DC press corps still contains many reporters who’ve never taken a Greyhound bus or entered a Walmart. They don’t understand what it means to earn only the minimum wage.
Out of the News 