The journalistic obsession with uncovering old documents and finding symbolic childhood moments is symptomatic of a deeper sickness in the way the profession defines "reporting": Oddly enough, it's not really considered reporting to read Anthony Cordesman's latest report on Iraq. It is considered reporting to call Anthony Cordesman on the phone and ask him what he thinks. It's not considered reporting to read through Barack Obama's speeches on nuclear proliferation and emerge with a coherent understanding of his stated policies. It is considered reporting to land an interview with Barack Obama and ask him what he thinks, and it would be considered ace reporting -- A1 level reporting -- to unearth a copy of Obama's college thesis on nuclear non-proliferation and publish his conclusions. In part, this is due to the competitive pressures of journalism. The journalist's job, in theory, is to learn things that other people can't learn, so work conducted largely by analyzing documents and information in the public domain isn't journalism. It's "research." And since folks could basically do it on their own if they had the time and analytical expertise, there's no reason for a paper or magazine to pay you to reproduce their hypothetical work. But the obsession with the old, with documents that are outside the public's sight line, with interviews and the promise of off-message moments that they bring, comes out of an underlying worldview in journalism: That politicians are all bullshit artists, that politics is all artifice, and the reporter's job is to cynically expose it as such and then peer behind the curtain to uncover the moments of spontaneity and honesty. Within this rubric for journalism, there's no reason to read speeches or policy plans or interview transcripts, no reason to stick in the public domain because it's all crap anyway. Better to try and trigger moments of surprise -- when truth might slip through the cracks created by shock -- then take seriously a politician's stated plans for the country.
