Texas Observer | Politico | The Washington Post | AJR
Washington Post higher education reporter Daniel de Vise "employed some unusual, perhaps even unethical, techniques" while preparing a piece about the Collegiate Learning Assessment, writes the Texas Observer's Forrest Wilder: He allowed officials at the University of Texas at Austin who were quoted in the piece to review the draft of his story and suggest changes.

Wilder obtained emails between de Vise and the UT brass via a public-records request, and the quotes he chooses make de Vise look eager to please: "Everything here is negotiable," he told the school's director of media outreach. "If you or anyone at the university has any concerns about it, I implore you to direct them to me. I'm one of a very few reporters here who send drafts to sources!"

De Vise also stressed his track record, Wilder writes:

In another email, de Vise wrote that he's "never had a dissatisfied customer in this process. And that includes an article a few months ago about a school with one of the nation's worst graduation rates.”

Two journalism profs (one at UT Austin!) criticized de Vise's process. Wilder also spoke to my Poynter colleague Kelly McBride, who disagreed: “I actually think that what those emails show is a very genuine effort on the part of the reporter to get not only the facts right but get the truth while remaining independent." McBride, Wilder says, told him that "the survival of the print news business has caused her and others to rethink the rules."

Writing in Politico late Tuesday, Dylan Byers called Wilder's story "pretty damning." De Vise's actions "went beyond getting the truth: UT officials wanted to scrub or alter quotes because they reflected poorly on the institution," Byers says. (more...)

The Hollywood Reporter
Fairleigh Dickinson University's recent study about how people's media diets affects their knowledge of current events didn't cast a positive light on Fox News: People who watched only that channel scored lower than those who watched no news at all, the study said.

An unnamed Fox spokesperson lowered the boom on the school:

“Considering FDU’s undergraduate school is ranked as one of the worst in the country,” said the FNC spokesperson, “we suggest the school invest in improving its weak academic program instead of spending money on frivolous polling – their student body does not deserve to be so ill-informed.”

Anonymous spokespersoning is SOP at many networks, but it's especially lame in this case: an ad-schoolinem attack (or whatever you call insulting a university) rather than a response to the survey findings. But as apropos-of-nothing insults go, it's pretty good!

Fox should be trumpeting the smack-talk mastery of this unnamed flack rather than forcing him or her to hide in the shadows. (Also, reporters: When spokespeople ask to be unnamed, you know you can say no, right?)

Still, we're talking about a news organization where anonymity is wielded with uncommon agility: Earlier this week Howard Kurtz wrote that a "senior Fox News executive" told him that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes regretted calling New York Times reporters "a bunch of lying scum." (Note to Kurtz: See above.)

In some ways Jerry Sandusky’s trial on sexual abuse charges is familiar territory for news outlets. Most have policies against naming alleged victims of sexual assault.

But the defendant, the media attention, and the public interest are not at all … Read more

The New York Times
Maïa de la Baume profiles Valérie Trierweiler, whose partner, François Hollande, was just elected president of France. Trierweiler (her last name will henceforth serve as a useful shibboleth for sorting out who was paying attention in high-school French) has covered politics for Paris Match and continues to do so for French TV channel Direct 8. That's "not widely regarded in France as posing a potential conflict of interest," de la Baume writes. “I haven’t been raised to serve a husband,” Trierweiler told de la Baume. “I built my entire life on the idea of independence.”

Journalist-politician pairings occur stateside, despite the former profession's well-documented handwringing over whether reporters should even register with political parties. Columnist Connie Schultz, who is married to U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), saluted Trierweiler on Twitter:

This journalist married to a U.S. senator cheers French journalist and First Lady Valerie Trierweiler. Great attitude. tinyurl.com/7kn8arn — Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) May 16, 2012

Schultz took a leave of absence from The Plain Dealer in 2006 when her husband, Sherrod Brown, ran for the Senate; she returned after he won the seat. But she decided to resign in September as her husband's re-election campaign ramped up. She told colleagues in an email: (more...)