Today’s quiz: Guess the source of these in-print statements, focusing on GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, asks Grumpy Editor.
“Republicans are fretting over the state of their nominee's campaign.”
“A new flurry of polls (show Romney) behind.”
(Romney is) “untested on the international stage and with limited foreign policy experience.”
With unrest in Egypt and Libya (anti-American violence swelled to two dozen countries since Friday), "Romney accused Obama of apologizing for America, his first statement mischaracterizing events in Cairo before all the facts were known…”
“Romney's foreign policy bobble was the latest in a series of recent missteps.”
“Republicans have expressed worry that Romney may be starting to let the campaign get away from him. Others are pushing him to explain more clearly what he would do as president.”
“Observers have noticed a change in the candidate who struggles to connect with his audiences and is tagged by critics as less than charismatic and even out of touch.”
Answer: Associated Press.
Four AP writers were behind the lengthy story that ran in some newspapers over the weekend. Sharing bylines were Steve Peoples, who covers national politics, and Thomas Beaumont, political writer. Contributing to the piece were Beth Fouhy, White House correspondent, and Ben Feller, presidential campaign reporter.
After reading the story, that ran two-and-a- half single-spaced pages when printed out, Grumpy Editor wondered if the material was produced in the White House communications office.
Veteran journalists, at least those from the “old school,” were taught to leave the editorializing for the editorial page, use attribution from real, named sources rather than tossing in words such as “observers” and “others,” and not to let bias slip into the copy.
(Do naughty things like that and a growling editor would promptly transfer an offending reporter to the overnight police beat.)
Meanwhile, with recent events putting a strong spotlight on U.S. foreign policy, Amy Holmes, a news anchor on Glenn Beck's GBTV, on CNN's Reliable Sources yesterday, said media should:
"Go to the sources...find out what is going on in the Middle East. Americans are tuned in and reading newspapers. What is happening over there? What happened to our State Department? Where were our ambassadors? Did we have advance warning?
"Who, what, where, when and how in the Middle East --- instead of Mitt Romney."
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