FROM THE WORLD OF AMATEURISM – AT 10:49 A.M. ET:  There are many lessons to be learned in dealing with the press, but one of the first is that there is no such thing as "off the record."

Oh yes, the term is used, has a generally accepted meaning, and most journalists play by the rules.  But some don't, or find a way around those rules. 

Today there are some in the military who are suggesting that General McChrystal and his staff were betrayed by the Rolling Stone reporter who revealed the comments that got McChrystal fired.  From The Politico:

And from the department of a day late and a dollar short, a “senior military official” has told the Post that maybe all that locker room talk Michael Hastings scribbled in his notebook wasn’t on the record after all.

But the command has concluded from its own review of events that McChrystal was betrayed when the journalist quoted banter among the general and his staff, much of which they thought was off the record. They contend that the magazine inaccurately depicted the attribution ground rules for the interviews.

"Many of the sessions were off-the-record and intended to give [reporter Michael Hastings] a sense" of how McChrystal's team operated, according to a senior military official. The command's own review of events, the official said, gleaned "no evidence to suggest" that any of the "salacious political quotes" in the article were made during a series of on-the-record and background interviews Hastings conducted with McChrystal and others.

But why wait until two days after the general is fired to say it? And then not even go on the record yourself?

Too late, too late.  You don't make damaging comments with reporters around, even if you think you're off the record.  Government leaks like the Titanic after it met the iceberg. 

And trust a reporter from a traditionally anti-military publication like Rolling Stone?  What were these boys thinking?

Journalist embeds are usually embedded with the troops, at a level far lower than the area command.  The McChrystal experience is going to make senior officers shy about giving a reporter this kind of access to the top again.

June 26, 2010