There's a fascinating interview in Salon today with Robert Draper, author of the new book on George W. Bush, entitled (ominously, to me) Dead Certain. There will be lots of opinions about the picture of our President painted by the book, but what struck me most was Draper's explanation of how he, of all people--a mere freelance reporter from Texas--managed to penetrate the force field that seems to surround this White House. How did he manage to get all those interviews with Bush, when nobody inside the Beltway has pulled this off?
"It was Journalism 301," said Draper. "I would interview one guy and it would go well. And he'd say, yeah, sure, you can come back. And I'd say, by the way, you mentioned so-and-so in the interview. Do you know how to get in touch with him? And then I'd drop the name of the person I [then] interviewed. And so I moved closer and closer inside the circle....I don't have any particular gifts as a reporter. I don't have an interviewing technique that spellbinds people. Which is a long-winded way of saying I really don't know how. I just kind of plodded along. I think it meant a lot to this president -- it's the sort of thing that does mean a lot to him -- that I never asked it to be handed to me on a silver platter."
Just read that paragraph one more time, and think about certain key words and phrases--i.e. "Plodding." "Journalism 101." "I never asked it to be handed to me on a silver platter."
From this you can infer a great deal about standard reporting practices for much (way too much) of the inside-the-Beltway media.