National Journal editor, Ron Fournier, issued a memo to his staff telling them to refuse “quote approval”, a process which allows public officials/politicians the right to clear their own quotes prior to publication, emphasis mine:
“I'm sure you have been following the dust up over government officials demanding that news organizations permit them to clear their quotes [touched off by a piece last week by NYT's Jeremy W. Peters ... A quotation is just as important as any other paragraph in your story. ... So how is ceding control of an interview or quote any different than letting a press secretary edit any other paragraph? The entire story? All your stories? It's not. Don't do it. If a public official wants to use NJ as a platform for his/her point of view, the price of admission is a quote that is on-record, unedited and unadulterated. Proposed exceptions can be discussed case-by-case with your editor. We can't hold leaders accountable while allowing them to pull our punches.”
