I've been following a multi-blog discussion on the issue of reporters granting, and public officials demanding, anonymity in news reporting. The idea keeps surfacing that a contributor to the issue has been the television series "West Wing," where the public official would breezily use the phrase "off the record" and have it automatically granted. Just as with the idea that CIA operatives got their ideas on questioning suspects from "24," I find that idea really quite horrifying.
Do we really have people in such responsible jobs drawing their standards for real life behavior from fictional television programs?
No comments:
Post a Comment