Busted Backgrounder

The "background" briefing has been a Washington fixture for years, a two-sided convenience through which officials can be more candid than usual with reporters in return for having their identities hidden in such collective cliches as "official circles" or "informed sources." Though their ostensible function is to inform, backgrounders are frequently misused.

The Administration can easily exploit the sessions to promote a policy line or send vague hints to other capitals, while retaining the option to deny the whole thing later. Last week the Washington Post deliberately broke the unwritten rules for backgrounders and again called the whole practice into serious question.

En route back to Washington from the Azores summit, White House Adviser Henry Kissinger chatted aboard the Spirit of '76 with five "pool" reporters who represented 88 other members of the presidential press party. Under persistent questioning, Kissinger retreated from plain background rules to "deep background." That meant information could be used only on the reporters' own authority, without attribution to those all-knowing "Administration officials." Thus shielded, he hinted that President Nixon might--just might--call off his planned Moscow trip next spring (see THE NATION). The pool wrote the report, cleared it with Kissinger and passed it on to the larger group of reporters, mentioning both the source and the ground rules.

To Post Executive Editor Benjamin Bradlee, Kissinger's remarks amounted to an Administration policy pronouncement and in the public interest required attribution. He ordered Reporter Stanley Karnow to identify Kissinger by name. Declared Bradlee: "We have engaged in this deception and done this disservice to the reader long enough."

Once the Post blew Kissinger's cover, the New York Times followed suit. Many correspondents in the capital, however, agreed with David Kraslow of the Los Angeles Times, who charged the Post with "unprofessional, unethical, cheap journalism." Kraslow, one of the pool reporters who had questioned Kissinger, said that he "felt undercut, that my word had been broken. The Post violated a longstanding rule. Those who use the pool as their agent are bound by it."

The White House was also indignant. Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler said that the rule's violation was "unacceptable." Ziegler discussed the problem with the President and quoted Nixon as saying, "Fine, then let's not have any more backgrounders." However, Ziegler said that he would meet with reporters this week to work out new and binding rules for any future White House backgrounders.

Footprints. Most journalists are ambivalent about the threat. Kraslow, despite his anger at the Post last week, shares Bradlee's general disdain for backgrounders. When large numbers of reporters publish and broadcast similar stories based on the same briefing, informed people can usually guess who the informed source was.

Kissinger's footprints, for instance, are easy to spot because he is the only White House official who briefs on foreign policy--and generally has been the most helpful member of the Administration from the journalists' viewpoint. However, the stories that emerge from deep background sessions sometimes convey as objective fact what in truth is only one side of a complex dispute. The backgrounder can allow officials to be irresponsible and reporters lazy, almost unwittingly placing journalists in a too cozy relationship with news sources.

Short Change. Nonetheless, the backgrounder is unlikely to die. Many one-to-one interviews are conducted under some form of background restriction, and these can yield valuable information. In certain situations, officials are entitled to regard the press as a partner rather than as an adversary. Briefings are also helpful when technical experts explain complex subjects like a new budget. Bradlee admits that when "John Connally gives a background briefing after the Group of Ten meeting, we can't not go. We would be short-changing the reader."

The backgrounder has become such a Washington institution that small groups of reporters have organized periodic breakfasts, luncheons and dinners for the purpose of having candid discussions with officials. Usually the information cannot be directly attributed. When the Washington Star's James Doyle started a new group called the Frontgrounders, which conducted only on-the-record interviews, he soon had to abandon it. Few officials would agree to say anything useful.

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