White House access is a jackpot for reporters

By Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports that "the White House has practically been overrun by journalists pumping top officials for behind-the-scenes details for a growing roster of behind-the-scenes books." He lists numerous Beltway reporters who are working on such books (The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, NBC's Chuck Todd, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, MSNBC's Richard Wolffe, The Washington Post's Bob Woodward), all of whom desperately need access to top White House officials and viciously compete with one another for it, because:

For the most part, the works in progress are not dispassionate policy analyses. What makes political books sell -- the backstage struggles, the fiery memos, the angry retorts in meetings -- can be gleaned only from the likes of Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and, perhaps, Obama and Vice President Biden.

In other words, these are books about royal court intrigue and gossip, which cannot be written unless top White House officials cooperate with them by dishing to them their little secrets. And why are these hordes of DC White House reporters so eager to be chosen by the White House to carry out this task? Because: "Time's Mark Halperin and New York magazine's John Heilemann, whose campaign chronicle 'Game Change' became a huge bestseller, have just signed a deal with Penguin Press to chronicle the 2012 contest -- for an advance reported to be about $5 million."

Inside-DC gossip sells, even (rather: especially) when it's as tawdry and anonymous as the sleazy Halperin-Heilemann book. So whichever of these political reporters wins the intense competition to curry favor with top government officials will be richly rewarded. Even Kurtz recognizes the extreme conflict that poses to their "journalism":

(More here.)

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