Ashcroft Is Unprintable, and Glad of It

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, who is continuing his tour of the country to promote the Patriot Act, has at several stops, including Buffalo and Philadelphia, refused to speak to print reporters. While television correspondents can often breeze right in, their newspaper colleagues are kept at bay by Secret Service agents doing the bidding of the nation's chief law enforcement official, who prefers audiences of handpicked enthusiasts and interviews with local television reporters.

According to Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock, Ashcroft wants to explain "key facts directly to the American people" and not have to subject himself to "as much of a filter from people who are already invested in having a different view of it."

Of course he does. What public official wouldn't prefer a stenographer to an interlocutor? Ashcroft, like the president he serves, wishes to conduct the public's business in an echo chamber. With aplomb and no hint of bad conscience, they practice the politics of no-politics, the politics of l'etat, c'est moi.

Like president, like attorney general. For example, on March 6, in a rare press conference on the verge of war in Iraq, George W. Bush joked that the choice of which reporters would be permitted to question him was scripted in advance. But he did put some of the tougher-minded reporters in their place, passing them over as if they were overeager sixth-graders.

Ashcroft knows that, with niftily chosen sound bites, he can dominate credulous local television, which harbors few practitioners of the probe and deep focus that can legitimately be called journalism. This has allowed him largely to stay "on message," rally his partisans and keep annoying critics at bay. The exception was an interview with ABC News' Peter Jennings this month in which Jennings did ask some pointed, specific questions about immigrant detention and other civil liberties infractions. No doubt Ashcroft will not be doing that again soon.

Television journalists are a competitive bunch, and they are loath to show solidarity with peers who have been stranded beyond the ropes. But it is wrong to go on with business as usual in this instance. Instead of enabling this highhanded behavior, they should solicit questions from print colleagues and use them, or ask Ashcroft on the air why he wants to reach local viewers but not local readers. (Don't they need to know about the Patriot Act?) Surely it behooves favored television reporters to note for their listeners that the administration plays favorites. That's news.