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Can we all agree that Kanye west acting like a dick has taken up way too much of our time.

Didn't our time used to be valuable?

I am so sick of modern media’s latest revenue generating tactic of playing schoolyard tattletale. “Ooooh, the President called you a bad woooord!! What are you gonna do about it??” And then they run to the “offended” party and try to get a quote back. “Ummmmm, I KNOW you’re not gonna let him talk about you like that, are you?” Whether it’s Palin-Letterman, Perez-Prejean, Oprah-Brown, media respecting the age-odd demarcation of reporting the news, not creating it has been utterly shattered under the guise of quote gathering. Suddenly, man bites dog arrives in the form of an honest declaration.

“Spark debate” is rapidly moving to replace “Oscar buzz” as my most loathed media created vapid expressions. It all just makes for a gigantic game of telephone. Can wait to get e-mail or blastext saying, “Did u hear? Da Prez just stabbed sum guy?!” ‘Oh no, he just called him a dick.’

It’s such a shame Kanye wasting that opportunity. It’s not like we all haven’t watched some award show at some time or another and thought, “That’s buuuullsh#t! That shouldn’t have won!” Now that fantasy of Wild West Justice is never going to be realized for any of us.

One theory that seems to be lost in Kanye’s rudely time defense of Beyonce’s video, maybe he just likes her? He wouldn’t be the first male to do something colossally stupid for the sake of love. Him being drunk and/or a self centered ass as an excuse only goes so far, I wonder if he wasn’t trying to protect his boo. Kinda like that one dinner scene in Gosford Park.

Reporting any aspect of an agreed upon off the record conversation is wrong. The reporter should be fired and the White House would be justified in not granting CNBC any special access going forward. If you don't want to treat something as off the record then don't go of the record with someone or at least get something on the record first. How long until politicians bypass networks all together and just tweet their message.

Funny, I see this as a prime example of the gray area that modern journalism is working in right now, and a great example for an ethics debate.

I'm not sure it is fair to punish CNBC, as it was another company sharing the line who basically tapped into the CNBC's report. Then again, if CNBC is so cheap as to be sharing the line, this is the sort of thing you'll get. It's like walking a cupcake through fat camp and saying, "Don't eat this, it's mine."

Also, why is any reporter making a deal to keep stuff off the record with the most important man in the world? Isn't this the same cozy behavior everyone on the left was so upset about with Bush's White House press corps? Now, granted, opinions on Kanye West aren't the same as why we invaded Iraq, but still, Obama knows he was on camera and if he hasn't learned yet to keep his mouth shut, that's his own damn fault.

(P.S. - this very situation was a great West Wing episode almost a decade ago.)

And if the deal is not in fact a deal, as suggested by this article, but only a custom that may or may not have ever been agreed upon, then why stomp on the story?

It really isn't what the story was that is interesting, it's how it became a story that is.

It would have been AWESOME if he'd had been like, "HOLY SHIT it was AWESOME when he straight owned that dim country chick."

YEE-HAW!

KANYE'S MOVE = PURE AWESOMENESS. But if Taylor needs someone to console her, I'd bang her with the Swiftness.

Maybe it shouldn't have been reported...but isn't it actually true that the President of the United States, when wearing a microphone and speaking to a bunch of people with no specific "off the record" agreement...just might indeed not have a reasonable expectation to privacy?

TAYLOR SWIFT GIVES ME A BONER.

I'll give her the mike, if you know what I mean.

"Kelly McBride, an expert in journalism ethics for the Poynter Institute."

Sez who? What a dimwit. And this is exactly the sort if TMZ'ing of culture that's led to journalistic decline. Bush was allowed to swear off the record too, and Obama will not be more careful, less trusting, as is his off-the-cuff wont. Fuck twitter.

No, Perm.

There are many, many things that are part of the process. Chatter with reporters and other human beings is part of that process.

Process is not news and has no business being reported.

This is what AICN and so many others have always misunderstood... and now it is infecting up. I know it sounds like hyperbole, but the manipulation of the media starts with exactly this kind of thing. Take the civility out of the relationship and the door gets more tightly shut and less truth can escape because every spoken word gets managed to within an inch of its life... not because the sources are fascists or even paranoid, but because they MUST be paranoid and restrictive.

This speaks, again, to the Nikki Finke shit. Reporting gossip as news means LESS news, not more news.

I have lived this for over a decade. I can hear, almost literally, the sphincters of major companies snapping shut every time some idiot overreaches for the sake of self-aggrandizement or because of pressure from an editor who doesn't really get it and only wants their idea of what "news" is in this industry.

Keep it simple... will Obama speak candidly to a reporter again soon... silly personal touches like talking Kanye? Would you?

Of course not.

And does that new chill serve ANYONE? Only if you are ignorant enough to think that a reporter can do their job by regurgitating everything they hear that someone else might want to hear. No professional I know of works like that.... ironically, Nikki Finke least of all.

Editorial judgment is dead... long live editorial judgment.

P.S. Let me say again... THIS WAS NOT SOME DEAL TO KEEP ANYTHING "OFF THE RECORD."

This is two human beings trying to make a human connection in order to make an on-the-record conversation work better.

And even in my little world, at least 90% of DP/30s start or finish with conversations that are not taped and include things that must not be written about or talked about publicly for the sake of honoring privacy. These conversations fill out my insights into the industry (and sometimes, vice versa), but mostly they let the interview subject know what I am bringing to the conversation, how safe or unsafe I may be, and where the lines are.

I will often open the door to a pre-interview conversation ending up being part of the conversation on camera. But people have a right to not be on the record every single second on every stupid subject. And if they don't want to go there on camera, it is never my job to hang them out to dry because I think they should be dragged onto the record.

When that camera starts rolling, we do not cut into the conversation and the subjects are told this. If they say it, it's on the record, no taking it back. But shooting the shit about the production or the studios they work with or personalities, etc... it's process, not product.

This is the same shit that Michael Moore used in Fahrenheit 9/11. You know, I used to watch actors do national press over the satellite in the inside feed at NBC. Tony Randall, not thinking about being watched, eating lunch, fascinated me. But would I throw it onto a Flip and then onto YouTube to break his private fourth wall? No. That would make me a f-ing asshole.

But back to my last comment, people who think that anything that can get put on the web should be put on web are people who have nothing to lose, have no respect for others, and have no understanding about how important relationships that are not endlessly abused by reporters are to getting stories when news actually happens.

And in this case, the fact that ABC was tapping into a CNBC feed to spread this crap should be legally actionable. When did it become their right to abuse a business relationship - sharing a fiber optic line - like that? Really disgusting.

TO: Beyonce is married to Jay-Z, so if Kanye considers her his "boo" he'd better watch his back. :)

"(P.S. - this very situation was a great West Wing episode almost a decade ago.)"

My first thoughts too... Does Barack Obama just watch old episodes of The West Wing and take notes? He even has a lucky tie for major speeches.

The quote, discussing the brain power of Bartlett's presidential opponent, was "a .22-caliber mind in a .457-magnum world". In that case, it was completely intentional, a way to get people talking about his GOP contender's intelligence without explicitly bringing it up. I don't know what Obama gained from the 'off the record blurb' (maybe to convince the scared white voters that he can talk trash about black people too?) but I'm not so sure it was off-the-record. We'll see.

"I'm not so sure it was off-the-record. We'll see."

Exactly why this kind of thing is scary. You don't see any benefit for Obama to be sneaking this into the media, yet you still think it might be intentional.

This is not just you, Scott. But it is giving out non-news info - GOSSIP - that allows people to develop a dozen different ideas of "why?" when in fact, it just isn't meant for everyone to be discussing. This is a silly version of it, but it has the potential of being really problematic.

I agree that it was out of line to leak this, it will affect future interactions with the press, and it probably wasn't intentional, but it certainly will help Obama. All the polls I've seen have said that people overwhelmingly agree with him on Kanye. I've already seen this compared to Clinton's Sister Souljah moment.

Respectfully, I tend to disagree with Dave on this subject. I think some reporters can go the opposite direction and be too civil with their subjects, which keeps the truth from coming out. Hell, that's what the entire movie Almost Famous was about.

As a reporter, anything that comes out of your subject's mouth, except prefaced with "this is off the record" is understood to be in play. If Obama hasn't learned yet (and it is increasing clear that he hasn't) that his opinion on interacial matters, no matter how trivial, are going to get blown up, then as a country, we're all in trouble.

Now, a good reporter's job is to decide what the subject said is news and what isn't. And in this case, I think the CNBC guy was right, that this remark probably wasn't news (or at least news for his outlet). But, when a reporter takes the mindset that says, "Well, the subject was just talking casually or off subject, so I'm going to act like it was off the record," the reporter has gone too far to protect their own self, most likely because they want more access.

To bring it around to this blog, it'd be like a movie reviewer, who either held back or tempered a negative review because they wanted to have continued access to a filmmaker, a studio, or whatever. That's serving the reviewer, but it doesn't serve the readers. And that is supposed to be who the reviewer serves.

I can theorize what Obama might have gained, but I simply said I didn't know for sure. In my defense, I'm doing just that... talking with people on a film blog's comments page.

While I do agree that if it was not intentional, that the leak was unconscionable on the parts of those responsible, the fact that this happened days after polling found Obama's support slipping among white conservatives can't be completely discounted (Salon has a bunch of articles on that) without at least acknowledgment. But, that's all we're doing here... we (as opposed to Poytner for example) are simply discussing this amongst like-minded colleagues.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I do think there is a difference, once the gossip has been leaked, between discussing it in a casual manner with peers versus a journalist blarring their theories on the blogsphere or newspapers purely to make news and garner attention (something that I may have been guilty of doing once or twice over the summer, I confess).

I'm not advocating that what was done was right...but also, it sounds like not everyone who Twittered this info was a journalist, necessarily. And also, a lot of journalists are basically jackals and Obama should just assume this.

And it's not like this is some new AICN development. Yellow journalism from back in the day was even worse.

"But, when a reporter takes the mindset that says, "Well, the subject was just talking casually or off subject, so I'm going to act like it was off the record," the reporter has gone too far to protect their own self, most likely because they want more access."

I agree. There's far too much chumminess between the media and the administration as it stands now. That relationship should be strictly professional, and even adversarial. In this respect, David's handling of his showbiz interviews is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Also, I agree with Obama.

Kayne is lier, he was not drunk

Seriously, mystery... "how are the wife and kids" can't be allowed for? "How 'bout them Cubs?"

And Me... yeah... holding back a review for the sake of getting access is not doing the job. I have lost - and given up - plenty of interviews to my honest opinion. In fact, just yesterday it came up and I didn't interview "a celebrity."

But we're talking about "hey man, can you believe this Kanye thing?" not "Hey man, those Russians going into Georgia... can you believe it?"

No question that it's tricky and that media has become too generous to anonymous sourcing. But this is not that at all, in my opinion as a professional.

And mystery, if you think the movie crap apple falls far from the rest of the media tree, you are wrong. We are the low end, yes, but we (and sports) are where the infections start.

"Seriously, mystery... "how are the wife and kids" can't be allowed for? "How 'bout them Cubs?""

Hmmmm... I guess its kind of a gray area. I don't mind some ice breaker questions, but when it comes to the Washington/national press, I don't think its appropriate to develop a rapport.

Now, if its a Men's Health magazine interview, its different. But it doesn't change my view that the president should consider any encounter with any media as "on the record". Its not difficult. Just don't call someone a jackass.

I don't think the President took any undue assumptions. I’m also hesitant to believe it was an intentional "leak." Is it really that big of a shock for some people to hear the President crack on someone? I feel like scratching out new media ethics and replacing it with new money because old money (media) knows how to behave.

Again, a buncha grade school tattlers. This time having zero shame over their childish projections of what a Pres is supposed to be or say. Beyond hero worship, like a fantasized belief that this elected official somehow is not merely a man but an enchanted monarch put in place either under divine right or the orchestrated wizardry of fairy tale land. Someone needs a pimp slap and be told, “He’s the President of the United States in 2009! Not King Friday in PBS Makebelieve Land.”

From article: "I thought that was really inappropriate," Obama says. "What are you butting in (for)? ... The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She's getting her award. What's he doing up there?"

A questioner chimes in, "Why would he do it?"

"He's a jackass," Obama replies, which is met with laughter from several people.

I don't think I'd be nearly as upset by all of this if they had at least framed everything in context, i.e. it was a JOKE!. A simple tweet of: "The President just had the best joke. Someone asked why would Kanye jump on stage? He goes, “He's a jackass.” LMAO!"

Boom, you're out in 120 characters and now the rest of the world is scouring the interwebs looking for audio and the issue of off the record may’ve been reduced. Not Beavis & Butthead going “Heh, heh, he said jackasss.”

It’s unprofessional gossip but how it goes from tweet to news is an industry hoping to spur addiction to content by supplying constant updates to trivialities. Did anyone even complain that the President (joked) called him a jackass? Anyone? I think it just gets thrown out for mass consumption hoping someone would.

Personally, part of me wishes the President would call more people 'jackass' (regardless of who happens to be President at any given time) except for the obnoxious fact that discussion of said jackassery is almost always going to be a sideshow distraction from actual important policy debates.

The video of said 'jackass' statement has been released.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO_QIMNRreg&feature=player_embedded

It's obviously not a staged moment so I rescind any conspiracy theories. It's actually a terrifically human and amusing moment. The leak of the video may actually help Obama and may undo some of the 'no president will talk casually with a reporter again' issue that Dave correctly brought up. Granted, how much you enjoy this may depend on your political affiliation, but it is what was claimed - an off-the-record, off-the-cuff moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO_QIMNRreg&feature=player_embedded

Sorry for the double link... wasn't paying attention.

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