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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 9/27/2007 1:33:01 PM
Title: NSA seminars not a surprise
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From NANCY SCHWERZLER, former Baltimore Sun Washington Correspondent: Regarding NY Sun's article on NSA press briefings: It is hardly surprising that the NSA has conducted "seminars" for reporters in an attempt to influence how they reported on national security issues. Going back 30 years (ugh, I betray my senility) I was a "guest" at a CIA briefing for then-young journalists who were fellows at the Ford Foundation sponsored Washington Journalism Center, then run by former Washington Post reporter and Nixon enemies list member Julius Duscha. It was at the height of the Watergate investigations and then CIA director William Colby invited our small fellows group (including Bill Keller, then of the Oregonian and now NYT editor) out to Langley for a luncheon and briefing. It was an interesting, and at the time ground-breaking, effort by the CIA to win the 'hearts and minds' of young reporters, to explain what the CIA did and did not do and to try to undo some of the Watergate damage. Polite but irreverent as we were, we agreed to refrain from asking where they hid E. Howard Hunt's wig collection. For lunch, they paired us up with the youngest, most bearded "analysts" in the building to re-inforce the non-covert side of the agency.

Over the years the CIA has done 'background' briefings for reporters about to be sent on overseas assignments, and has tried to extract information from reporters upon their return from overseas assignments. Of course, with the dimininuation of overseas news coverage, there will be fewer reporters for intelligence agencies even to bother inviting to lunch. [Permalink]

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