Key quotes from the Greenwald article discussing the NY Times piece (both are worth reading):
A common criticism of establishment journalists entails comparing them to stenographers, on the ground that most of them do little more than mindlessly write down and uncritically repeat what government officials say. But stenography is a noble and important profession: they’re the court-licensed officers who, with astonishing speed and accuracy, transcribe the statements of all witnesses, lawyers and judges in judicial proceedings. If establishment journalists were to replicate actual stenography, it would be an improvement on most of the work they produce.
It is beyond dispute that President Obama and his aides have an extreme, even unprecedented obsession with concealing embarrassing information, controlling the flow of information, and punishing anyone who stands in the way. But, at least theoretically speaking, it is the job of journalists to impede that effort, not to serve and enable it. Agreeing to grant veto power over quotes — whereby officials can literally alter what they actually said, and then have newspapers report the doctored, inaccurate quotes — is about as journalistically subservient and reckless as it gets. It’s not merely stenography: it’s inept stenography. No actual, ethical stenographer would ever agree to that.
Agreeing to grant veto power over quotes — whereby officials can literally alter what they actually said, and then have newspapers report the doctored, inaccurate quotes — is about as journalistically subservient and reckless as it gets. It’s not merely stenography: it’s inept stenography. No actual, ethical stenographer would ever agree to that.
Quote approval is something that publicists and lawyers give to their clients (I promise not to attribute anything to you publicly without your advance consent); in other words, it’s reflective of a relationship between those in a service profession and those who are served. And that explains why establishment journalists provide this service to these political officials: because they serve them as spokespeople, not report on them adversarially.