More thoughts on Pitts

In our book, the only thing Lee Pitts is guilty of is a bit of brilliance — coming up with an inventive way to get a newsworthy question asked. It’s preposterous to suggest that, simply by using a proxy, Pitts “inserted himself into the story” any more than any reporter maneuvering to get the attention of any government official at a press conference.

Hmm. Pitts wrote a story about members of the 278th bringing their concerns “straight to the top.” Spc. Wilson is by name in the second sentence — Rumsfeld’s response isn’t quoted until the sixth sentence. This is a story about a QUESTION, not the answer. It’s just dishonest to try to put words in someone’s mouth, and then write a story based around that question. This isn’t something that could have been solved by a simple one-sentence disclosure in the 10th paragraph.

Continuing, CJR author Bryan Keefer writes that Pitts has “predictably … taken some heat from knee-jerk defenders of anything that the Bush administration does (Rush Limbaugh, Jon Podhoretz)” — ignoring the criticisms leveled by the likes of media ethics professor Jane Kirtley, AJR editor Rem Rieder, and the Poynter Institute ethics professor Aly Colón.

And, uh, that’s JOHN Podhoretz, Keefer. Several Nexis and Google searches found no instance of where Podhoretz has actually written or spoken on TV about Pitts … did I just miss it, or … ?

“But, interestingly,” Keefer continues, “both Rumsfeld and the president himself have been quick to acknowledge the legitimacy of the question…”

Well, yeah. And so has every critic of Pitts! Limbaugh, the other “knee-jerk” Bush defender, for example, said explicitly on Thursday and Friday, “I don’t have any problem with the question that was asked.”

Limbaugh says his complaint is that “the question asked by the soldier was not asked by the soldier. The question put in the mouths of the soldiers was provided by a reporter who is not supposed to do things like that.”

Now, I don’t know to what extent the question was “put in the mouth” of Spc. Wilson — but until we hear from him, neither does anyone else! It’s certainly conceivable to me that the he ended up asking a more aggressive question based on encouragement from Pitts … but we just don’t know.

Getting back to Keefer — he says of Pitts’ failure to disclose his role in the story:

But that’s a small transgression indeed, especially if the outcome of all this is fewer lives and limbs lost in Iraq because one intrepid reporter figured out a way to break through the shield that separates official power from life and death on the ground.

Hmmm. It may well be Pitts’ inquiry results in more armored vehicles in Iraq.

But should the practical result of Pitts’ actions change how we judge him?

That’s an honest question, and something I’ve been mulling over.

Think about it: would we excuse outright lies by a reporter, if it saved troops’ lives? A journalist who filed false reports of an impending U.S. attack, for example, might confuse the enemy, allowing American troops to overcome them more easily.

Similarly, I’m inclined to defend Kevin Sites, even though some conservative have argued his reporting on the unarmed insurgent killed in Fallujah will result in more attacks on U.S. soldiers.