WASHINGTON 2002
Evolving Attitudes about Revolving Doors
When George Stephanopoulos replaced Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts on ABC News’s This Week, it left only two career journalists, CBS’s Bob Schieffer and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, as hosts of the five Sunday political talk shows. The rest have some politics in their past: Tim Russert counseled former U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo before taking a job with NBC, and Tony Snow was chief speechwriter for the first President Bush before landing at Fox News Sunday.
Stephanopoulos, of course, was part of President Clinton’s inner circle as a senior adviser before going to ABC News when Clinton began his second term in office.
There is nothing new about political operatives becoming journalists, although there may be a change in the way we think about the phenomenon. When people like William Safire and David Gergen and others went through the revolving door, a fair amount of controversy followed them, as reporters and editors worried about possible bias and conflicts. But journalists we asked about the Stephanopoulos switch, by and large, didn’t see a problem.
Alex Jones, Director of Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy: “It’s not new. It’s very much like academia and government. It really depends on the person. You can’t lay down rules.” Stephanopoulos deserves the same chance that others have been given, Jones adds. He remembers the outrage when former Nixon speechwriter William Safire was named a New York Times columnist: “Like Safire, Stephanopoulos has been given a very prominent forum, but unlike Safire, he is expected to preside over a discussion. George Stephanopoulos will have to persuade people of his objectivity, but I disagree with those who wring their hands and say you should never be allowed to be in journalism if you’ve been in government.”
David Shaw, a media columnist for the Los Angeles Times: “I’m made uneasy by it. On the other hand, I don’t like rigid, inflexible rules. George is an exception. On the occasions that I’ve watched, I’ve found him to be lucid and intelligent.”
Richard Wald, the Fred Friendly Professor of Journalism at Columbia University and a part-time ABC consultant, says revolving door criticism is useful. “I approve of this criticism, but it just doesn’t cut it in George’s case.” Wald, a former president of NBC News, acknowledges that Stephanopoulos was a master of spin. But he is irritated by the idea of barring certain people from journalism. Unless you want the trade to become licensed, he says, it doesn’t matter where you came from. “If you find a nuclear physicist who can write English and you hire him as a science writer, you’re ahead of the game. If you can find a doctor who can write English and writes about medicine, you’re ahead of the game. Why should it be different for politics? You have to show you’re serving the audience, not the politicians. So when you go through the revolving door, 180 degrees is fine, but 360 degrees isn’t.”
Tom Goldstein, the former Columbia Journalism School dean,
who spent two years as the press secretary for New York Mayor
Ed Koch: “Stephanopoulos served his apprenticeship at a very
high level. He’ll be scrutinized and that will be a corrective
in itself. The tradition has been that you’re generally given
one pass through the revolving door. My general view is that the
tent of journalism is a big one. I learned an extraordinary amount
in those two years, which has been very useful to me. I never
went back. I’m sure there are still some hard-liners who
wouldn’t approve. I wouldn’t have covered city hall
right after leaving. But if you’re only seeing the world
from the outside, you do miss something. People with first-hand
experience can be quite useful.”
Enjoy this piece? Consider a CJR trial subscription.
