Word: backgrounding
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Bush could be hampered by his Establishment background (old money, Andover, Yale) and his brittle mien. His somewhat shrill voice, unmodulated even after professional coaching, could grate next to Ferraro's homey lilt. "He sounds a little too hyper, a little too screechy," the ex-aide concedes...
Reporters generally honor commitments to keep matters off the record or on background. When a remark is considered particularly newsworthy and the ground rules are ambiguous, it becomes a judgment call; reporters went public when Jesse Jackson referred to Jews as "Hymies." Of late, journalists have wondered whether they were too ready to agree to off-the-record arrangements, particularly in campaign coverage. The New York Times, which did not publicly challenge Mondale's rules during the primaries, helped force the change for the general-election campaign. Said Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal: "We cannot accept a blanket...
...attribution and on background are used to mean that a source's comments can be quoted, but he or she must not be directly identified; the speaker may be described in such phrases as "a top White House aide," or "a high State Department official" or, in extreme cases, "one observer." On deep background, pioneered by Henry Kissinger, means that whatever the reporter uses cannot be linked to a source at all, but must be asserted on the journalist's own authority. Off the record material cannot be used in any form, except to guide a reporter...
...back to school for the first day." On the set of Passage he faced an additional hurdle, his daunting regard for the director: "The first two days in Bangalore I didn't want to talk to Lean. I was in such awe I wanted to fade into the background...
Complicating matters further is the shady background of Tsakos. Washington Attorney Carl Shipley resigned last year as president of Tsakos' Trans-Africa Pipeline Corp. when he received an intelligence report from the Greek secret police alleging that Tsakos had a criminal record and once worked as an arms dealer. U.S. intelligence sources, Shipley says, largely confirmed the report. It is also believed that Tsakos may have sold American-made helicopters to Iran. Shipley passed along the charges to Hatfield. The Senator confronted Tsakos, but was satisfied with the financier's denial of the charges...