Last week the White House press room closed for an anticipated months-long redo.
Reports say the gutting aims to modernize the room.
Adding high speed Internet access, a video wall to support live feeds from government officials and revamping wiring are on the list of proposed improvements.
On the surface, those mainly taxpayer-funded changes sound legitimate.
Technology has zoomed ahead since President Richard M. Nixon ordered the room, which opened in 1970, to be built.
But the changes seemed moregeared toward making it easier for administrations to project a message than toward promoting the flow of information and the give and take between government and Fourth Estate.
The video capability would allow the government to interrupt the visual of reporters? questions to fill viewers? television screens with its scripted messages.
When not feeding the public live PR pablum from officials, the screens could show flags waving, government charts or graphics, or inspirational messages, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
The plans would fit with the Bush administration?s penchant for micro-managing information flow to voters, a concept it certainly did not invent but has refined.
It has paid conservative commentators for positive coverage. And it regularly sends news organizations video news releases.
Stephen Colbert employs the same techniques on his fake news show, “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, where he plays a conservative talk-show host and mouthpiece for the administration.
Flags wave on video screens, bald eagles swoop and inspirational messages abound, all geared toward “steering the great ship of news through the channels of truth.”
If all it meant was that C-SPAN viewers would be treated to former Attorney General John Ashcroft belting his song, “Let the Eagle Soar,” in press room downtime, it would not be so troubling.
But the problem is Colbert, as his TV persona, cares nothing for truth.
He promotes “truthiness” ? a world view that relies on perception and gut feeling rather than facts.
We the people do not elect our leaders to feed us truthiness.
And we the people must not pay for renovations that make it easier for the government to evade questions and obscure the news of the day.
Sadly, the fact that reporters posit arguments as questions, a less than great idea, likely contributes to the government?s perceived need to hide.
Anyone watching C-SPAN has watched reporters argue rather than question, orate rather than probe.
But once this precedent is set, who knows to what deceptive ends future administrations might put it. Since little news emerges from the briefings in the press room, the worry is reduced in scope.
However, before the new room opens, the press corps should negotiate a briefing schedule that allows for the most real questions possible.
Truth must trump truthiness.
