When Reporters Attack

Washington Post reporter Mark Leibovich covers a raucous press conference with Sens. Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and DNC Chair Howard Dean:

The press chorus then devolved into a cacophony of competing screams. (And Dean knows screams!) After several seconds, a booming voice cut through the noise. It belonged to Brian Wilson, a Fox News correspondent who was standing in the middle of the crowd. He asked Dean "if people are focused on the other things that you've said about hating Republicans, about Republicans being dishonest and then this latest comment about the Republican Party is full of white Christians. You say you hate Republicans -- does that mean you also" hate white Christians?
Dean didn't respond and Reid talked about having a "positive agenda." Wilson was so insistent that at one point, Durbin asked, "Does he run the press conference?"
... An aide to Reid announced that the photo op was over.
"We'll decide when we're ready," Wilson said. Later, Durbin would recount the scene with some exasperation. He chided the media for avoiding important issues in favor of trivial matters. "Please, for a minute, get to the substance," he said to a group of reporters. "You guys should be ashamed of yourselves."

The article's more interesting when you learn that Wilson and Leibovich got into a journalistic sissyfight after the event:

Wilson was apparently wearing no credential of any kind (that wasn't a red flag to anyone) and behaving "bizarrely angry" so the Washington Post's Mark Leibovich asked who he was.
We hear that Wilson "went nuts," responding to the Post reporter (whose credentials were clearly on display):
"Who the fuck are you?"

I hope that Leibovich had the good sense to give the correct answer to that question.

Journalism · Politics · Television · 2005/06/10 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Why can't Dean and the others just stick to their guns like the Bushies? You know, never admit you're wrong or admit made a mistake. So just say "yes, I do think the Republican leadership is dishonest. They lied about x, y, and z. Yes they support a white christian agenda, they vote for x, y, and z. Yes they are irresponsible etc.... " Stop retracting, stop equivocating. Do it with humor perhaps, do it with the caveat that this does not mean that every republican is evil. But stop taking back every other criticism you make because some commentator or politician trys to shame you for it.

#1 · lymond crawford · 2005/06/10

It's still really, really funny to hear one of the whitest people in America, from one of the whitest states, complaining about white guys.

Heck, Dean makes *me* look ethnic...

#2 · Chad Irby · 2005/06/11

I have two words for Howard Dean:

Honky please.

#3 · Uncle Mikey · 2005/06/11

I like Howard. He has no chance of national office, but the Democrats need more hell-raisers. I hope that on his next appearance on Meet the Press, he unexpectedly mauls Tim Russert as a lesson to the other media.

#4 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2005/06/11

It seems suspicious to me that the Democrats have never taken real advantage of the opportunities presented by Republican perfidy, especially their record on the environment.

I don't understand why the Dems don't just pound them, mercilessly.

#5 · Southern Democrat · 2005/10/23