March 14, 2006 7:16 PM
When the reporter gets in the way of the story
I attended the Gridiron show in Washington, D.C., on Saturday night, a high point of the year for me. The next morning I read the story about the allegedly off-the-record event in The Washington Post and was disappointed that the cynicism of the writer got in the way of conveying the experience.
The story is more critique than reporting, although it's presented as any other news story. At a minimum, it should have been labeled as a column or opinion. It's an example of writing to show how "clever" or "smart" the reporter is rather than giving readers a real sense of the event, which I believe is our first duty.
In the few times I've attended, I've never felt that the idea of Gridiron is to "let the world know that Washington is not the stuffiest, most uptight city in the world."
The idea is that for one night differences are set aside and opponents and journalists laugh at the folly of the political world. Seems a pretty healthy ritual to me for the president to sit and watch himself be lampooned, all in good fun. In other countries, you know what might happen to a person who deigns to mock the king.
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