Why we were right to publish Obama aide's 'off-the-record' remark

Published on Sunday 9 March 2008 21:13

THE speed and the power of modern global communications has rarely been more apparent than last Friday, when a story from The Scotsman reached the very highest levels of American politics in a matter of hours.

The report stemmed from an interview by our political correspondent Gerri Peev with Barack Obama's foreign policy aide, Samantha Power. The article was to prove controversial, politically and journalistically.

During the interview Ms Power, a Harvard law graduate and journalist, said of Hillary Clinton: "She is a monster." She then immediately said of her remark: "That was off the record." Amid the fall-out, which saw Ms Power apologise to both Clinton and Obama, there was criticism of The Scotsman for publishing a comment Ms Power had made clear she did not want it known she had made. So, were we right to publish it?

It has to be borne in mind that personal political attacks between the Obama and the Clinton camps had become the political story since the Ohio and Texas votes on who would be the Democratic party's presidential candidate. So, any personal remarks were a genuine political story, not just knockabout.

The rules on what is and what is not reportable in exchanges between journalists and politicians are, in my experience, very clear. If a journalist makes it known that he or she is a journalist and asks a politician a question, then the response is on the record. If, in a sit-down interview, the interviewee wishes to go off the record, that is established at the outset, so both parties agree. It is usual that these off-the-record remarks or briefings take place at the beginning of any interview, and it is clearly understood by both parties when off the record starts and stops.

To have any credibility at claiming "off-the-record" status, it has to be clearly stated before any remarks are made that the interviewee is going off-the record and this has to be agreed. I have never heard of an interview in which the politician can edit his or her remarks after the fact. That amounts to asking for editorial control of what is published, and I know of no journalist who would agree to that.

Some complaints said we had betrayed journalism by publishing what we did. On the contrary, we would have betrayed journalism, and our readers, had we not done. It was evidently Ms Power's opinion but she realised immediately she should not have said it. It is our job to report what she said as evidence of what she believed, not what she had wished to say and would have us believe.

IRECEIVED complaints this week over a promotional campaign in the paper that linked the Scotland-England rugby international to a book on Bannockburn we gave away on Saturday. It said: "Bannockburn, 1314, there was blood. Next Saturday 15.15, there will be blood".

Gillian Woolman complained that it stirred up anti-English hatred. It was meant very tongue-in-cheek and I don't believe it did stir up hatred, but it probably is a mindset we should move away from. Sorry.

&#149 Contact Ian Stewart on 0131-620 8633, at [e-mail] or at 108 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh, EH8 8AS.