Word: cateres
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...fundamental as these two problems may be, they are not novel. What is unusual is Douglass Cater's suggestion in his book, The Fourth Branch of Government, that something may be wrong with the machinery itself. His examination of Washington reporting as he has seen it in nine years as Washington editor of the Reporter suggests that the changes in Washington and in reporting in the last thirty years found the reporter unprepared and left him slightly dazed and greatly altered...
...this enormous creative power is often not sought or realized by reporters themselves. Even more often, the act of creation is performed not by the writer but by an agency or person who has learned how to use the reporter's limitations and rules. Here, Cater does a most impressive job of documenting the many ways in which the press of a free society can be manipulated for selfish ends. The late Senator McCarthy's use of deadlines and of the "unexpected" charge which could not immediately be proved false kept him in the headlines until "over-exposure...
...Marshall Plan. But there are issues--such as the discussion of "permissible levels" of Strontium 90--where reporters digging for the facts and not just for a story perform a considerable service, and there are even times when the President can use his press conference to great effect (though Cater argues that this American "Question Period" has fallen on very hard times...
...Cater stresses, however, that the news which is manufactured by a planned leak, by a timed press release, by a publicity-conscious Senator, by a harried President at press conference time, or by a Congressional investigation aimed at headline capturing is not necessarily the news which the public needs to know. Operating under the pressure to get a story which will sell papers, and under the realization that he lacks the sophistication to handle complicated scientific, diplomatic and economic decisions, the Washington reporter cannot fulfill, Cater maintains, his ideal role as public informant...
...Morse even suggested that a TIME story quoting an anonymous U.S. official's rueful jest about dividing up Bolivia-a quote in TIME'S Latin American edition that was used as provocation for riots in Bolivia (TIME, March 16)-was a sinister attempt to cater to Brazilian designs on Bolivian territory...