This is so valuable, thank you. Among many other important things is an item about the media — crucial and easily missed — the great limitations of “access journalism.” I am reminded of a couple of things. 1. Peter Baker, New York Times White House bureau chief, when asked the simple question of what he knows about something or other, replied, “I don’t know anything, I can only tell you what my sources tell me.” 2. A corollary or related I think is the following: “nearly as important as what newspapers print is what they do not print.” (Credit for this is my late teacher at Yale Charles Hill, a career diplomat who had been Secretary Shultz’s executive assistant and chief of staff at the State Department, and as it happens political minister-counselor at the Tel Aviv embassy in the late 1970s/early 80s.)
This is so valuable, thank you. Among many other important things is an item about the media — crucial and easily missed — the great limitations of “access journalism.” I am reminded of a couple of things. 1. Peter Baker, New York Times White House bureau chief, when asked the simple question of what he knows about something or other, replied, “I don’t know anything, I can only tell you what my sources tell me.” 2. A corollary or related I think is the following: “nearly as important as what newspapers print is what they do not print.” (Credit for this is my late teacher at Yale Charles Hill, a career diplomat who had been Secretary Shultz’s executive assistant and chief of staff at the State Department, and as it happens political minister-counselor at the Tel Aviv embassy in the late 1970s/early 80s.)