PressEthic

In the midst of a war with Iraq, the New York Times is more focused on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's squash game than his defense policies. I couldn't help reading this article and laughing. This article, written by David Cloud, spends 25 paragraphs talking about the leisure activity that Rumsfeld frequently enjoys. Is this newsworthy?

For the last six years, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has slipped down to the Pentagon basement many afternoons, changed into a T-shirt, sweat pants and headband, and spent a heart-thumping hour playing squash.

The story begins as a narrative about how Rumsfeld changes into a humble t-shirt and sweat pants and goes down into the basement of the Pentagon to play this sport. There is no lede, and this is definitely a soft, feature story. However, why would the American public be interested in such a story? The reasoning behind the Times decision lies in a metaphor:

In some ways, squash offers a window into Mr. Rumsfeld’s complicated psyche, revealing much about his stubborn competitiveness and seemingly limitless stamina. Pentagon officials and employees say Mr. Rumsfeld’s play closely resembles the way he has run the Defense Department, where he has spent six years trying to break the accepted modes of operating.

While many of Rumsfeld's friends make this similar comparison, it seems like a stretch to me. The real purpose of this article, for me, has nothing to do with comparing squash to Rumsfeld's Defense strategy. It has much to do with the so-called "liberal media" that Eric Alterman discusses. While Rumsfeld is not involved in a campaign, this does resemble the way the media portrayed Bush in the 2000 election:

Bush charmed his press corps, and Gore repelled his; in an important sense, this is all we need to know to answer the question posed at the top of this chapter.

This article, to me, seems like a stretch by the media to portray Rumsfeld, or perhaps even the Bush administration, in a softer light. Perhaps approval rates are down, and the media wants to portray this man in a more human, down-to-earth way. This article resembles the effort of an entertainment program to show celebrities out in the world, doing normal things. As in the 2000 election, the media ignores the issues.

I could understand if the newspaper had sat down with Rumsfeld himself and talked about how his specific Defense strategies resemble his squash game, but Cloud does not even interview Rumsfeld:

Mr. Rumsfeld has declined invitations to play against reporters, as well as to describe his game for this article.

This looks a lot like he's dodging the issues. I think it would have been a much smarter and more professional move to hold off on publishing this article until Rumsfeld himself could be interviewed or even not be published at all. It would have saved the Times a lot of space and embarrassment by getting rid of this unnecessary fluff.