Did Obama Consultant Lose Her Job Over Journalistic Malpractice?

I just got a call from Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, so I guess this is a real issue.

The media Web site Romenesko is buzzing a bit over some folks implication that Samantha Power, a well-known foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, wound up resigning today over a comment which journalists should not have printed.

I've also heard a little discussion about this on other journalism email listservs. The way the story has been reported so far, Powers tried to take back her already infamous quote about Hillary Clinton seconds after she said it. ""She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything," The Scotsman quoted her as saying. Before that, she had said ""We f***** up in Ohio...In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win."

I know the whole issue of on or off-the-record comments is complex for non-journalists. As a reporter, I try to be explicit with sources when a conversation is on or off the record -- off the record comments are usually for my ears only, unless the source agrees I can tell others, usually without their names attached. I rarely allow people to take back important things they've said on the record. If I'm talking to someone who is not particularly media-savvy, I may not be so didactic about rules.

But Power is hardly that. She's a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has appeared on the Daily Show and posed for a pictorial in Men's Vogue. We're at a point in the campaign where the world's media is on full-fledged "gaffe mode" -- looking for the slightest verbal slip-up by any person connected to either candidate in a tight race. If anyone should know how to conduct herself around a reporter she doesn't know in a situation like this, it should be Power.

The bottom line, is that off the record conversations occur after both the source and reporter have agreed -- hardly something you can do when the source throws in the request AFTER they've already said something. If I had been that reporter for the Scotsman, I would have printed Power's comments, too.

Comments

“off the record” is off the record… period. As a journalist, it’s hard enough to maintain integrity (as a profession) in a world full of cheep-shots and inexperienced punks looking for the short cut. This girl should never be trusted again.

The only thing worse is that we’ve become so lustful for political correctness that we’ve forgotten how to communicate. Maybe that’s why the rest of the world no longer “gets” us. First it was the “N” word (banned from use by white people only)… then nappy-headed hos became the rage (no race attached, just perceived)… now, the word “monster” gets you fired. Pretty soon, we just wont communicate at all.

Mission Accomplished!

[reader]

she should have known better, and it came back to bite her. period. people with big mouths learn hard lessons!

[Team Evolution]

It is so unfortunate that Ms.Power had to resign when the Hillary camp gets to keep Mr.Wolfson!...Hillary's kitchen sink tactics are killing the Democratic party that when/if Mr.Obama or Hillary has to go toe-toe with McCain there will be no water left to cleanse their souls from the "Blood bath" one of them will have to endure!

Dean, Gore man-up and take care of business...I see the light and it's the train!