Bloggers meet with Geithner, Treasury, notes Times; As if their writers don’t?

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This morning I read a New York Times story about the Treasury Department inviting in a group of writers for an off-the-record attempt to sell them on the success of the Administration’s stimulus package. This is not scandalous–this type of access is a common feature of the relationship in Washington between government officials and the press. Think of it as the time-share presentation in exchange for a free vacation: a reporter gets a sit down with a high-ranking government official and all he has to do is listen to ten talking points about how the stimulus is working even better than official statistics suggest!

I’m not here to criticize the writers who participated, nor am I here to criticize Brian Stelter, who wrote the story, but I find it disturbing and amusing that the story was written, pretty much because the writers in question are, gasp, bloggers! Financial bloggers! (Nerds? Nerds!)

Stelter’s piece, Treasury Invites Bloggers to Round Table is short and sweet, because it was probably at least a little awkward for him to write. Times reporters, as most others do, meet with sources on background with regularity, especially in Washington, where it’s a necessary part of the job. Indeed, Times columnist Tom Friedman has played golf with President Obama, a five hour long off the record meeting of sorts. The thing is, the Times left it to columnist Maureen Dowd to note this in her column, not writing a story where a wide-eyed Friedman said he would stop being hard on Obama after the golf outing together. If the Times won’t assign Stelter or anyone to report on off-the-record meetings with the President by its own in-house reporters, why should he want to call a bunch of bloggers and hypocritically pester them about meeting with Geithner?

Indeed as nytpicker notes, Dowd herself once criticized the practice of off-the-record presidential get togethers; until she was invited to her own off the record breakfast earlier this year, with three other Op-Ed Times writers who use reporting in their columns. Paul Krugman also had an off-the-record dinner with Obama which the Huffington Post covered, noting (a little testily, I think) he would not write about it.

As far as I can tell, these meetings aren’t mentioned in the Times, unless a columnist chooses to mention them. It’s unfortunate to see the organizational blind spot so clearly manifest itself here. Brian Stelter is a good and interesting to read reporter. But he did not receive an assignment to bug Dowd, Friedman, Krugman or any other Times writer who’s had an off-the-record meeting with the Administration, or to report such a meeting in the paper. Nor, as far as I can tell, has the Times written about any other major news organization’s reporters having such an off the record briefing. If Stelter did write such a story, I think he certainly wouldn’t have gotten a quote like this one, from Steve Randy Waldman:

“The mere invitation made me more favorably disposed to policy makers,” he wrote in his summary of the event, even though he abstained from eating any of the cookies at the meeting, “on principle.”

I don’t accuse Stelter of torturing his sources, either, but he or his editors probably realized that bloggers would be a little less guarded in talking about this meeting. Eight bloggers attended, from Waldman’s and Stelter’s recountings:

1. Steve Randy Waldman
2. Michael Panzer
3. Kid Dynamite
4. Dave Merkel
5. Yves Smith
6. Accrued Interest
7. Tyler Cowen (who sometimes contributes to the Times)
8. John Jansen

Good for them, getting in the door and being recognized as the influential and informative writers they are. It’s too bad the Times has to note their meeting with the raised eyebrow of the fact that they are bloggers rather than traditional newspaper reporters. If the newspaper devoted similar space to reporting on the meetings all those engaged in coverage of Washington have with officials, there wouldn’t be room for very much else. And if the newspaper is going to make a choice to cover the off the record meetings other writers (and gasp, bloggers) have with the Administration, it should, at the very least, extend such coverage–in the news, rather than opinion pages–to reporting on its own such meetings, too.