Who cover the White House who write the stories that get picked up by the wire services and into our nightly news. Observe;

Q [WaPo reporter Jim VandeHei] It’s come to my attention that there’s been requests — this is a serious question — to turn these TVs onto a station other than Fox, and that those have been denied. My question would be, is there a White House policy that all government TVs have to be tuned to Fox?
MR. McCLELLAN: Never heard of any such thing. My TVs are on four different channels at all times.
Q Because you have four different TVs. But every time I’ve ever been —
MR. McCLELLAN: Every TV in the White House also has channels every — has a split screen, where they can —
Q VandeHei Well, they always seem to be tuned to Fox, and there’s been requests, and these are paid for by taxpayer dollars. And my understanding is that you guys have to watch Fox on Air Force One. Is that true?
MR. McCLELLAN: First time I’ve ever heard of it. First time you’ve brought it to my attention, meaning the first time the press corps has brought it to my attention. In fact, I’ve watched other channels on here.
Q VandeHei There’s one —
MR. McCLELLAN: Hang on, Jim, come on. I’ve watched other channels on here, so I don’t know where you’re hearing that. But it’s the first time anyone in the press has raised that question with me.
Q VandeHei You’ve watched other channels other than Fox?
MR. McCLELLAN: On here, yes, sure.
Q VandeHei I’ve never seen — they’re always turned to Fox, which a lot of people consider a Republican-leaning network.
Q VandeHei Scott, is it one — on the airplane, is it one for all? I mean, if it’s tuned for Fox here, is it Fox everywhere?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think that certain areas may be interconnected, but
I’ll have to double-check which.
Q VandeHei Is yours off, wherever you are?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the conference room, or the senior staff office,
the staff office, they’re different TVs, and you can switch to different
channels. I’m not sure if some of these in the back are connected to
some of the others that are watching right here, right now. It doesn’t
look like it to me. I’ve never known anyone that’s raised a complaint
about a request from back here to watch a different channel.
Q VandeHei I’m officially raising it and officially complaining about it.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I’m going to go see if we can change the channel
for you. Have you called up?

May I suggest that the Cartoon Network might be more appropriate?
(Read to the bottom of the link for another surprising bit of information.)

My Conservative Dreamworld has a nice catch ;

Now, there is nothing wrong with journalists piggy-backing on other writers; for example, they may add their own spin to a story, or compress it for readers who don�t need the full details. Roberts does indeed acknowledge K�ntzel and the New Republic directly as the source of one item of information. But as the quotations below indicate, he has basically lifted not merely facts from K�ntzel�s piece but whole paragraphs. How this duplication escaped the Mop�s editors is a mystery to readers. It will surely prove an embarrassment to the paper.

The paper in question is the Globe & Mail, Matthias K�ntzel is the author of Ahmadinejad’s Demons (mentioned here last week) and the Globe writer is Paul William Roberts. Just one of several such paragraphs;

K�ntzel: The Basiji’s cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse. Nowadays, Basiji are sent not into the desert, but rather into the laboratory. Basij students are encouraged to enroll in technical and scientific disciplines. According to a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guard, the aim is to use the “technical factor” in order to augment “national security.”
Roberts: A past immersed in such a cult of self-destruction would be chillingly ominous in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, this obsession with martyrdom is deeply worrying. Basiji followers are no longer sent into the desert; now, they go into the laboratory. Basij students are encouraged to enroll in technical and scientific disciplines. According to a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guard, the aim is to use the “technical factor” in order to augment “national security.”

Uh oh.

April 27 Update: Thankyou to Angus Frame (editor of globeandmail.com) – for stopping by in the comments to notify readers that this was published today, both online and in print;

Clarification – A profile of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that appeared in last Saturday’s Focus section referred to a story about the Iranian President in the current issue of The New Republic. After an investigation by The Globe and Mail, it appears that notes by the author were mistakenly inserted into the story without proper attribution. The Globe has apologized to The New Republic and regrets the error.

Yesterday I received an email that I’ve received permission to share. I’ve edited the identifying details, as the writer would like to preserve her privacy;

Hi Kate,
I have enjoyed your blog since discovered it during the election.
I trust if you share any of my email that you would keep me anonymous please. I am still having *issues* to say the least with regards to my husbands death.
[The investigation into the circumstances of his death during a training exercise] is still ongoing, at least I think it is. I have never EVER been officially updated on it. That said, the only thing that has been confirmed is there was no pilot error (important for me and my husbands memory to bring that up).
The reason I am emailing you is the issue of banning the media from the base when the soldiers’ remains are returned to their families. While my husband was not overseas, I will share with you my personal experience with the media and a very public death.
Thankfully the media had yet to discover my house when I had to go see my husband for the first time. They found me by 6 AM the following morning. My parents had driven up immediately after my frantic phone call. My father stepped outside to get the papers and he was besieged (to say it lightly) with media camped out in my driveway! They were knocking at my door, putting the cameras on us as we opened it. There was always their cars there, with them sitting in them, waiting for someone to come or go. Phone call after phone call to the house when the lines were needed for more important issues. Our grief was made very public. I was asked if I wanted media at the funeral and I agreed to have them there. I wanted the people of Canada to know that even when Canada’s sons and daughters do not go overseas, lives are put on the lone on a daily basis for the safety and security of every Canadian. To show them how the phrase “military cut backs’ translates into real life in the forces. I had insisted that there not be a close up on any family member. I was sure Joe Blow watching the news did not need to see my tears, or those of my children to know we were distraught. Yet this rule was broken.
The media also pushed for the release of the names of those killed ASAP. Why?? Does it matter to Joe Blow? Shouldn’t it matter more that ALL family (not just immediate) and close friends are informed personally even by phone than to hear it on the news? Families of victims killed in auto accidents can request that the names not be released and Joe Blow doesn’t complain.
About the Peace tower and the flag flap, if anyone understand tradition it is a military member and his family. Did I expect the flag at the Peace tower to be flown at 1/2 mast for my husband?? oh hell no! But I did expect a phone call or something from our Prime Minister? Just the letter with his stamped signature would have to be good enough. He was in Europe and there is no way that letter was written there and sent to me to receive so quickly. It is also noticeable the signature is from a stamp and not hand signed. I did get a touching phone call and a lovely letter from the Governor General, HE Clarkson.
I will end this letter now. I could go on but I am sure you don’t want to hear all the sordid details of how a military widow is really treated.
Except to add, that if I were to walk into funerals of people I didn’t know stating it is my right to know who they are etc I’d be frowned on or even thrown out.

Think of this email when you see the tape replays shot by CTV news yesterday from over the fence at CFB Trenton.
If you’ve never forwarded a post from SDA to family and friends before – consider doing it with this one. The media has been screaming for tranparency. Well, let’s give it to them. Turn the “camera” back on the microphone holders for a change, and let ordinary Canadians see the mob for the self-absorbed ratings vultures that they are.

(bumped to top due to continuing updates)
From Army.ca, a military message forum, reaction to media coverage over the government’s decision to return to previous traditions when honouring fallen soldiers;

Once again, I’m fed up and disgusted with the media and their “spinning” of non-issues into something more. Yet again, TV tonight is awash with “Conservatives won’t lower the flag” stories – presented with no background and with plenty of people saying what an “insult” it is to soldiers. They have no idea what soldiers think of this issue, yet are ready to jump to conclusions in an effort to speak for us.
To the media reading this (and I have no doubt you are): how much is enough? You have plenty of coverage of the coffins being put on the plane and I have no doubt you’ll have plenty of the funerals – invited or not. Get a grip. We are the Army; it is a sad reality that part of our job is to take casualties on behalf of Canadians and our elected political masters – of whatever stripe. Don’t denegrate that sacrifice with an unseemly and politically motivated display of spin designed to promote controversy and generate ratings. “Canada’s Iraq” indeed…

h/t Mark Collins in the comments. (Mark is also now blogging at Daimnation).
More from Chris Selley, who also agrees with the Conservative policy (and looks back at contrasting news coverage during WWI). No nation can fight a war wallowing in a state of perpetual mourning. The flag should fly high and defiantly.
(As an aside, this debate over the growing frequency of flag lowering is not new – I recall reading a few weeks ago an anecdote about a school flag being lowered on the occasion of the death of a janitor.)
Another comment from an army reservist;

As a member of the army reserve I am sick of the MSM�s facination with flag draped coffins. They are always ready to show the coffin but but there�s barely a mention (maybe one or 2 sentences)of the work done by the men in those coffins.
Journalists are scumbags who are too lazy & dumb to do anything of any value themselves so they have to achieve cheap fame by leeching off the triumphs or tragedies of others. They then justify being the town gossip by pretending everything they utter is in the public�s interest. � Yeah right. Running up to a plane to photograph coffins is in the public interest? geezuz!
What do you low-lifes in the press do for fun? Go down to the dog pound with some pop & chips and watch them euthanize strays?

If you want to register your objection to Craig Oliver’s nakedly political editorializing, you can do so here. If anyone has his personal email address, drop it in the comments.
Commentor ET points to a Globe and Mail message board, where Lew MacKenzie is fielding questions link;

MacKenzie asks readers – ‘We lost 27 killed in Bosnia/Croatia in the 90’s”…and no-one paid any attention…Same in the Sudan, Congo, Golan Heights – “absolutely no-one called for the flags to be lowered”.
He further comments “I’m glad to see the public paying attention for a change – particularly those who slashed the budget and personnel strengths during the same 90s'”
So- why didn’t the Liberals lower the Peace Tower flag before? And why did they reduce the capacity of the military to protect themselves and us?
That is -point two- the flag lowering, once, on the Peace Tower, for those four soldiers killed by US-Canadian error – was a deliberate partisan political tactic of Chretien. It had nothing to do with respect, but was actually disrespectful, for Chretien/the Liberals used those soldiers.

Stephen Taylor has begun to document the flood of gratuitous comparisons between Stephen Harper and Darth Bush’s Rethuglamericans.
Stephen – that’s a job for a team of bloggers.
Definition: Drive By Media
The perplexing part about this growing trend to tie Harper’s policies to those of Bush is that it’s taking place in the duly diligent world of fact-checking, editor supervised, professional journalism. WaPo, 2003;

A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military-wide policy [barring media from covering return of “flag-draped coffins”] actually dates from about November 2000 — the last days of the Clinton administration […] Dover Air Force Base, which has the military’s largest mortuary, has had restrictions for 12 years, others “may not have been familiar with the policy,” the spokeswoman said. This year, “we’ve really tried to enforce it.”

“Harper’s policies on Afghanistan sounding increasingly Clinton-like”. Somehow, I doubt we’re going to see that in the headlines.

Just a little cursor problem. Nothing here to see, people.

full text
You could see the offending video clip for yourself, but the pro-transparency-in-government public broadcaster has forced its removal under threat of legal action.
Screencap (via a predictably dismissive, anonymous CBC employee blog Tea makers).

Near the end of this lengthy and contentious comments thread arising from the Aaron Harris photo post, “Tony” suggests that my criticism of the “mainstream media” arises from …. jealousy.
Hell hath no fury like a wanna-be journalist scorned, goes the theory.
It’s not the first time that accusation has been floated, nor am I the only blogger who’s been confronted with it. After I’d addressed that question, Tony repled;

Like hundreds or thousands of other people (and like dozens of MSM types) I enjoy your blog, even if I don’t always agree with your take on things, and like the vast majority of your readers I’m grateful that you take the time to do this and am glad you’re doing well enough to find the free time.
Thanks for addressing my note.
But I thought your post on Aaron Harris was ill-informed and unfair.
There are plenty of reasons to find fault with the MSM and your blog serves a valuable purpose in challenging its approach sometimes.
But please excuse some of us for reacting angrily when you paint the entire fourth estate with one brush, and malign a whole institution under imagined or erroneous pretenses, which is what I believe you have done in this case.

Because this goes to a broader issue, and because I believe I can speak for at least some of my readers – I’ve decided to reply here instead of continuing the comments thread.
I’ll plead guilty to generalizing about the “mainstream media” insofar that I assume most readers know (or will figure out) that I’m referring to the general inclinations of the major players in the industry and the liberal “default setting” through which most of our news is filtered.
The generalization is mostly a result of the brevity required of blogging and not intended as a wholesale indictment of every individual practicing journalism.
However, as he is a self-described member of that fraternity, my response to Tony about his “angry reaction” is this: you have a lot of work ahead if you hope to undo the slow-motion suicide of the news industry – and don’t bother protesting the validity of that premise. The decline in newspaper and magazine circulation, and the ratings numbers of the major networks speak for themselves..
We may agree to disagree on whether the Aaron Harris “serial crownings” at the Empire Club are worthy of a closer look and open questioning. Again, that’s the nature of blogging. Sometimes people agree, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they don’t care. Sometimes they think it’s unfair. I would point out that this is the nature of news reporting as well.
Unlike the news industry, however, when I present a topic, the readers look at the evidence, hash it out, bring new information to the debate, and sometimes I even change my mind. (As a footnote: the Aaron Harris post was originally prompted by an ordinary reader who directed me to the CBC item privately, in the belief that the photo had been willfully defaced. That should be a signal that something might be wrong.)
But in this case, what isn’t in dispute are the growing list of examples in the “mainstream” media of manipulated news “reporting”, reporter editorializing, and altered/staged photos. These examples are contributing to a significant problem with consumer cynicism about integrity and possible political motives within the MSM. The blogosphere has enabled comparison and criticism – and with that an unsettling realization that media sleight of hand and sleight of word are hardly new practices.
If members of the industry can’t withstand open scrutiny on this lowly blog without turning to rationalizations that I’m nothing more than a would-be journalist with a chip on her shoulder – then, you haven’t gotten it yet.
I’m not a competitor. I don’t want your job. I’m a frustrated news consumer. I’m sick of being spoken down to by people who can’t pronounce words correctly. I’m fed up with reading transcripts that reveal that reporters have quoted people out of context to support a pre-ordained script. I’m tired of having speeches and statements “explained” to me by pundits after I’ve listened to them.
I’m not interested in news stories created by polls commissioned to create news stories.
I’m tired of reading that wire services have stringent “ethical guidelines”, and that to suggest that a photo might be altered is well, just the realm of tin foil hat conspiracy mongering .

Better to ask yourself why so many of your former customers like myself – news “junkies” – no longer accept your stories and images at face value.
Call it the “fool me once” approach to news consumerism.
You’ve lost our trust. The question is now thrown back to you, Tony – how do you propose to earn it back?

---

Related: “Does the country really need 370 journalists to cover 308 MPs?”

The cool thing about the net is that it’s no longer necessary to subscribe to five different papers to find out how the news is presented differently from city to city;

Wow, we said. The Canadian military says the Liberals were foisting equipment “considered lemons or irrelevant” on them. They want to scrap “questionable” Liberal projects and replace them with equipment the military “needs.” Why wasn’t this on Page One?
Or was it?
Maybe it had been covered properly in other cities, we thought. We went looking. And we discovered, instead, a textbook case of story spinning.
It seems, as far as we could find, that this story was printed in four newspapers–The Winnipeg Sun, the Ottawa Sun, the Toronto Sun and the Edmonton Sun. And it was rewritten depending on where it appeared.
To begin with, the headlines were better in Edmonton and Ottawa.
Tories and military are in tune (Edmonton Sun)
Liberal promises put on ice (Ottawa Sun)
Forces may ice ships (Toronto Sun)
The leads varied from paper to paper:
OTTAWA — The military is set to scrap major equipment purchases announced by the former Liberal government. (Ottawa Sun)
OTTAWA — The Canadian Forces is reviewing its shopping list to find extra funds to pay for expensive Tory priorities. (Toronto Sun)
OTTAWA — The military is set to scrap major equipment purchases announced by the Liberals that are considered by brass to be lemons or irrelevant. (Edmonton Sun, Winnipeg Sun)

That’s only scratching the surface, as it turns out.

Because, you know, it’s not – especially when you work for a billion-dollar-a-year corporate media welfare case that’s about to have its mandate reviewed.


(Click image for link)
Now, compare this with the juxtaposition of the logo in two other photos taken during the Harper speech Friday. The crown portion is well above Harper’s head, in one it doesn’t even appear;


So what was Harris doing when he took that shot – lying on the floor? And if he was indeed, shooting from a lower angle, why is the microphone at the same height relative to Harper’s tie in all three images?
(And back to the original point, – what do CBC employees think they’re accomplishing with cheap stunts like this? Beyond adding “coffin nails” to Bev Oda’s shopping list)
This isn’t the first time photog Aaron Harris has “found” this clever angle at the Empire Club. Looking more closely at this older CTV story on the Gov.General, I captured the two images, and resized the smaller one to loosely match that of the Harris credited “crown on head” shot;

Note that the two are taken from nearly the same height comparable to Governor General, but that the Harris photo places the viewer a little more to the left (based on the positioning of the microphone relative to her face). Yet, miraculously, the backdrop with the maple leaf logo not only drops lower, but it also takes a sudden lurch to its right.
So, what does that suggest about how Harris may have achieved his unique image capturing “King Stephen” yesterday?

Apr 23 Update: Steve Janke has found yet another Harris “crown on head” photo, this one apparently taken last November.

Discussion in the comments suggests that the Harris would be capable of aligning these images with the assistance of camera technique and technology. I’m willing to consider that explanation, of course – that Aaron Harris has, on at least three different dates, purposefully chosen the lenses, settings and camera angles required to place the crown portion of their logo atop the speaker’s head during speeches at the Empire Club. As was pointed out in the comments;

“the defense goes that a professional photographer with an excellent rep orchestrates using zoom lens and f-stops the same juvenile “bunny ears behind head” photo on three different occasions. Okay. What do you need to do to get a bad reputation in the news photo business?”

*AaronHarris.com
(Flashback: A reminder for those who protest that photo alteration “never” takes place.)
April 24 followup

Freed from the shackles of political objectivity and direct quoting, we find out this girl can really tell it like it is!;

“So it is fitting Harper has chosen to land last here in a tour that seemed deliberately designed to show his defiant � some would say contemptuous � streak.”
“Highly controlling in style, Harper aspires to be an establishment unto himself, and the means to that end seem to require he knock down all others in the political establishment.”
“It sometimes seems like the election has not ended for Harper.”
“By this, Harper doesn’t mean the “Calgary school,” the clutch of University of Calgary academics who helped forge his early thinking. He means the ones who disagree with him.”
“He presented all these kinds of people as the impediments to a proper child-care program in Canada. But in so doing, he sounded more like an opposition politician on the campaign trail than a prime minister who, technically, is supposed to represent and serve all Canadians, regardless of their politics.”
“The main thing they will probably learn is whether they’ve been cast already in Harper’s polarized world as for him or against him.”

And there’s lots more where that came from. I like this little Delacourtian Slip best of all;

“Last, but not least, the media.”

Emphasis hers.

Hugh Hewitt:

Columnist to the world, Mark Steyn, begins today as he does most Thursdays. Steynoline.com is where you can find all of his work. Mark, I want to begin with journalism today, because the Pulitzers came out, and the New York Times won for betraying national security secrets, the New Orleans Times-Picayune won for creating frozen bodies in freezers that weren’t there, and today, Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Prize winning from a few years ago columnist, Michael Hiltzik, is revealed to be a serial creator of his own identities to praise himself on blogs. What’s happened to modern journalism?

They cover a lot of topics – Hewitt and Steyn are always a great read.

It’s an album release by a war profiteer.
One would think that professional journalists would know the difference.

Story here. The reader who contributed this helpfully suggested; “Now, maybe they mean that being dead makes your condition ‘stable’.”
Maybe!

But you don’t understand, whined Winnipeg Free Press reporter Paul Samyn last Sunday.
” as a proxy for you, the reader, who doesn’t get to ask questions of those in power, I think your interests are also in play in the escalating communications war between the press and the Prime Minister’s office .”
Hey, Paul… We’re not at war with the PM.
I nteresting choice of words there… i sn’t the goal of a war to defeat the enemy? (Bias? What bias? No bias here. Move on. Nothing to see here.)
And, Paul. We withdrew our proxy long ago.
Maybe it was about the time you, as the vox populi, decided it was imperative for the electorate to know the thoughts of Kreskin the Mentalist instead of doing a single story about the income trust scandal that was consuming the Liberals’ fortunes.
We had to read the blogs to get details of the income trust scandal because you felt Kreskin was more important. It took months before we found out that Liberal cabinet minister Scott Brison was tipping off his close personal pals in the banking industry with here a wink, there a wink, everywhere a nudge, nudge. You’d think Kreskin would have known.

The rest of this spanking is up at the Black Rod.

Via a caller to John Gormley Live

A Jim Travers op-ed in the Star considers the underlying sloth of the Ottawa press gallery;

In diminishing the effectiveness of his press interactions, the Prime Minister is indirectly encouraging reporters to fan out to look elsewhere for news, a radical notion that’s not in his interest and will lead to scrutiny no administration can sustain.

Reporters actually going out to get the news? This cannot stand!
So, there we have it – tacit admission by a leading Ottawa journalist that the majority of his peers have behaved as lazy, spoon-fed agents of the Liberal party. One would think that such a revelation would be worthy of a column of journalistic self-examination, or at least a direct acknowledgment that accusations of pro-Liberal bias have foundation. Instead, he predictably issues yet another “warning” from media to the Harper government.
When we speak of “newspaper recycling”, Mr. Travers, we’re really thinking of the paper, not the ink.
Let’s get the real reason for this little squabble out into the open. The shrill cries from the press gallery for “accountability”, the invocation of “American-style” motives in keeping cabinet ministers and government officials on a short leash, the faux alarm about “secrecy” are complete and utter hogwash. What we are witnessing is a media suffering through loss. Harper’s changes mean the opportunity to practice the bread-and-butter of modern political reporting – the fine art of “gotcha journalism” – has been cruelly snatched from them.
At the moment, most seem to stuck somewhere between “anger” and “bargaining”, May they move to the stage of “acceptance” soon, and get back to the real business of reporting.
Postscript::
I can’t let the column in question go by without drawing attention to how Travers signals his personal viewpoint on a different score. (And I don’t mean just the predictable cheap shot attempts to paint Harper as ” reading from the George W. Bush script”.)

…a social shift away from universal programs and toward what is euphemistically called “choice.”

The word “choice” is not considered a “euphanism” when it comes to the question of abortion policy – so, why does Travers attempt to discredit choice when the issue is child care or health care?

Stephen Taylor pulls together a very good post on the “all about me” performance of CBC’s Keith Boag last evening.

Boag tries to link the frustrations of his job with “government accountability”. Canadians voted for change in the way that government contracts are awarded, lobbying is conducted, and the way that whistleblowers are protected. They voted for accountability in the way government works. Canadians did not vote for the Boag’s easy access to the most sought-after video and sound bite.

Precisely.
Be sure to read the comments – CTV’s David Akin weighs in.

Canadian Sentinel (from the comments *);

“What will they do next? Throw a pie?”

Would anyone be that surprised?

National Journal;

Photographers with digital cameras have provided, almost instantaneously, an enormous flood of accurate, dramatic, and even shocking images to people around the world. But the daily downloads of news photos include some that are staged, fake, or so lacking in context as to be meaningless, despite the Western media’s best efforts to separate the factual from the fictional.
[…]
For photo editors, new pressures to get it right are coming from Internet bloggers who collect and post critical comments from ordinary citizens and also from niche experts who may have intimate knowledge of the local culture, the U.S. military, or the particular news event in question, Elbert said. “We in the mainstream media have always decided what [images] we want to push out, but now people are disagreeing and questioning accuracy,” he said. “This is really confounding the mainstream media.”

For example;

If big media refrained from hiring stringers from Zarqawi-Bin Laden Paparazzi Studios, this might occur a little less often. On the other hand – that seems to be where they find many of their “opinion” columnists, so why not!
h/t

Why do we need bloggers to fill in the relevant legal details on news stories? In other words, where is the “due diligence” we are told sets professional journalism apart from amateurs?

The sudden press flap over Scooter Libby�s alleged �revelation� that President Bush declassified intelligence information related to Iraq is silly but all too predictable. The entire flap relies on mixing terms and �misunderstanding by innuendo� � a technique of demagoguery, not journalism. The flap is yet more evidence that the national press is more interested in playing �gotcha� with the Bush Administration than reporting the news.
Presidents and vice-presidents can declassify information based on their own good (or bad) judgment. That is a privilege and responsibility of the office. Their authority is near-absolute. Disseminating unclassified information isn�t a crime � no matter the technique used. The information can be disseminated at a press conference, in a press release, in a speech, or � yes� via leak. (UPDATE: Background links I should have included in the original post� though the president�s power in the sphere is common knowledge. The president is at the top of the Classification Authority hierarchy� he holds the ultimate clasification/declassification power. The vice-president is granted authority from the president. See this link to the relevant executive order regarding the vie-president. And I just found this article by Byron York which details the estension of presidential powers to the vice-president. York�s article emphasizes the formal codification of the vice-president�s classification powers, which is a change from past administrations.)
Reporters thrive on �leaks� because a leak usually means �scoop.� A leak can also mean �spin� but that�s an understood aspect of Washington�s political carnival. However, leaking properly declassified material isn�t a crime. Leaking classified material is illegal� and so is publishing classified material in a press release.
So what�s the story here? That someone who worked in the White House selectively passed properly declassified material to the press? That�s not a scandal; that�s Beltway business as usual. I�d love to hear that reported� it�s not news per se, but it would be refreshingly open and honest media analysis.

This story was coming across local news radio this afternoon in the context of “Bush authorized leak of classified Iraq intelligence”. As there are individuals there who also read this blog, it will be interesting to see how quickly the story is updated to reflect the facts.
Speaking of which, this reminder is also appropriate;

Remember, Libby was not indicted for illegally identifying Plame as a covert agent; he was indicted for perjury, a procedural crime. This pseudo-revelation may or may not relate to his alleged perjury. (According to a report I just heard on Fox it doesn�t; ie, the NIE declassification story does not relate to the perjury charges.)

Emphasis mine. Read the original to access the background links mentioned.
(Via Instapundit)
Byron York concurs.

First of all, it should be made clear — as it has not been in some discussions — that Fitzgerald does not say that Bush authorized Libby to say anything about Valerie Plame. As a matter of fact, on page 27, Fitzgerald writes that as late as September 2003, “the President was unaware of the role that the Vice President’s Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment…”
As for leaking portions of the National Intelligence Estimate, yes, it was classified, although it would later be declassified. But it should be remembered that when the president decides to make something public, then it can be made public.

For future reference: if you’re interested bypassing the “filter” to get coherent analysis on breaking US political news from the perspective of people who might actually know what they’re talking about, I suggest you bookmark NRO’s The Corner,
More for the reading-comprehension-challenged in the peanut gallery – CNN’s David Ensor;

Ensor: So, it had nothing to do with Valerie Plame-Wilson’s name. It was simply about this matter of intelligence in the lead-up to the war.
And in that matter, the president, according to this document, authorized Mr. Libby to give out some information to Judy Miller.
And by the way, he is legally entitled to do so.
If the president decides to declassify information, he has that legal right. So, it’s not about a law being broken here, and it’s not about Valerie Plame-Wilson’s name. But it does show us the first evidence that the president himself wanted some of this information put out in the media.
CLANCY: Well, at the time, if you go back to that period in time, there was a clamor from not only the media but from a lot of Americans that wanted more information, more details about what were, up to that point, rather vague statements at times by diplomats trying to assess just what was the threat there. So this was seen — would this be normal business in Washington, really?
ENSOR: I’m afraid so, yes. And, you know, after all, the — Ambassador Wilson — [former] Ambassador [Joseph] Wilson being Valerie Plame-Wilson’s husband — had put out a piece [a July 2003 editorial in The New York Times] in which he said — in which he attacked the administration for suggesting Iraq was going after uranium in Africa.
The administration wanted to highlight certain parts of this until-then-classified document that suggested that Iraq was aggressively pursuing some aspects of a nuclear weapons program, was looking for ways of getting uranium.
And so, they wanted to have that evidence out there to help their case in the run-up to war. Selective leaking authorized at the highest level, that’s — I’m afraid that is business as usual in Washington. It’s been practiced by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Via CBC Watch – Even a self declared “Bush hater” cites this case as example of CBC bias.. No, really.