The Edited Palin: Can Journalism Be Too Objective?

You may prefer ‘objective’ reporting, or you may prefer character driven news-o-ticians. Either way, one thing I’ve noticed more and more is the use of verbatim transcripts including misspeaking and repairs. Traditionally, Bush has been an easy target for this, but Palin is another example. Take this recent CNN article “Palin says she doesn’t regret Couric interview” which includes:

• "Certainly I should have done the interview. And to attribute I think that interview to any kind of negativity in the campaign or a downfall in the campaign, I think it's ridiculous."
• "In retrospect, in hindsight, I wish I would had more opportunities or that we would have seized more opportunities to speak more,"
• "However, the campaign is over. That chapter is closed. Now is the time to move on and make sure all of us are doing all that we can to progress this nation."

Now, does Palin speak with perfect ineloquence? or does the media report too literally what is said? Couldn’t this have been reported:

• "Certainly I should have done the interview. And to attribute I think that interview to any kind of negativity in the campaign or a downfall in the campaign, I think it's [is] ridiculous."
• "In retrospect, in hindsight, I wish I would had more opportunities or that we would have seized more opportunities to speak more,"
• "However, the campaign is over. That chapter is closed. Now is the time to move on and make sure all of us are doing all that we can to progress this nation."

Comments

[Chris Blow]

Journalists have the capacity to make people sound stupid or smart, it's not just that she's an idiot. Seriously this is a great observation; really great blog too.

[Chris Brew]

There's some slightly clunky verbatim transcript stuff in a long interview with Obama at

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/11/obamas-interview-with-cathleen.html

e.g. talking about time in Indonesia

"So I was studying the Bible and catechisms by day, and at night you'd hear the prayer call.

So I don't think as a child we were, or I had a structured religious education."

If one were so minded, one could use this to make Obama seem somewhat less articulate than
people see him as. Which would be strange, but this whole thing is strange.

[Anonymous Coward]

Politicians are often quoted verbatim because their followers shriek bloody murder when their comments are edited.

(For myself, I'd rather get the clunky transcript straight from the proverbial horse's mouth.)

[Russell Phillips]

This seems like a slippery slope for journalists to go down. When someone misspeaks, and you correct that speech for them as a journalist, then you are no longer really quoting them. The only acceptable way to really do that is to use ellipses. Most people don't do it because it looks suspicious, And rightfully so. Its important that the public understand exactly what their leaders and those who desire to be our leaders are saying.

[Pete]

Of course any public figure is going to have verbal responses which look pretty bad when transcribed directly. But if you watch, for instance, the Palin interview with Couric, there is no doubt that her words were not lazy or trying to find a tense; she simply meandered all over the place. It would have been inappropriate to make any kind of editoral corrections on her rambling.

[Matthew Hurst]

I agree - somethings cannot be fixed: to quote the current president of the USA

“Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can’t get fooled again.”