Generally Speaking: McChrystal's Rolling Stone Gaffe and Its Journalistic Implications

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The latest issue of Rolling Stone hit newsstands today, but most Americans already know about the stunning feature inside of it: the profile of General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
 
The now-infamous article features harsh comments critical of the Obama administration made by McChrystal and some of his aides. The general was called to the White House for a meeting on June 23, where President Obama accepted his resignation and nominated General David Petraeus to be McChrystal’s replacement.
 
According to numerous reported accounts of the Rolling Stone article, the interview process between McChrystal and freelance journalist Michael Hastings was conducted ethically and with the knowledge of McChrystal’s media team—elements that often lead to an article that satisfies all parties involved. But “The Runaway General” was far from satisfactory in many top U.S. officials’ eyes.
 
McChrystal is not the first—and certainly not the last—public figure to make a gaffe in an interview with serious repercussions, but will this incident limit journalists’ access to politicians and public figures in the future?
 
McChrystal’s candidness had media critics questioning whether or not he knew he was on the record during all of his meetings with Hastings. But Hastings and Eric Bates, executive editor at Rolling Stone, have both said in separate interviews that McChrystal knew he was on the record.
 
In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Bates said that Hastings had been very clear with McChrystal:
 
“They knew when we were on the record. They said a lot of stuff to us off the record that’s not in the story. We respected those boundaries. This was all when they knew they were on.”
 
Bates also told MSNBC that McChrystal did not deny the accuracy of the quotes during the magazine’s fact-checking process.
 
Hastings, who spent two years covering the war in Iraq for Newsweek, told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that he had his tape recorder and notebook out much of the time he was with McChrystal. Hastings told Sawyer that he didn't know why McChrystal agreed to such an open arrangement, but the journalist believes it may have come from McChrystal’s personality and time in the special forces community.
 
“It was a sort of natural kind of recklessness that General McChrystal had, that has been with him though his entire career…Their willingness to take a risk is part of their whole persona. And inviting me in, was obviously a risk, as it always is when you invite a journalist in.”
 
In an interview with Newsweek, Hastings said he was initially only supposed to meet with McChrystal and his team for two days in Paris, but the Icelandic volcanoes disrupted his plans and he ended up traveling with the group for about a month to numerous countries. This detail is vital, as Jack Shafer, editor at large of Slate, said:
 
Almost anybody can moderate his behavior for a day or two, especially if he's being watched. But nobody can do it for a month with visits to three continents. Familiarity breeds candor, and candor, once released, can't be recalled. 
 
Shafer also noted McChrystal and team's serious mistake of drinking in front of a reporter; "One should never ever, ever, ever imbibe in the presence of a reporter during the course of a profile!"
 
McChrystal’s actions raise questions about his media savvy, but he has dealt with the media before. Shafer pointed out that McChrystal “can’t claim that he was fresh to the profile game, having sat for a 9,500 word New York Times Magazine piece in October 2009.”
 
Keach Hagey at Politico cites that Hastings reported that McChrystal served as Pentagon spokesman during the invasion of Iraq. A job that Hagey notes “could not have come without some serious on-the-job media training.”
 
Hastings told Newsweek that he arranged the interview by e-mailing “McChrystal’s people.” According to a report in The Washington Post, McChrystal’s“civilian press aide” resigned after the story broke. The aide was “heavily involved” in arranging Hasting’s access.
 
Standard protocol seemed to be followed by all parties involved-- an ethical journalist, a veteran public servant and a media team--yet the final product angered the country's top leaders and led to the resignation of a four-star general. "The Runaway General" exposed serious tensions within the military and government. And future access to military and government officials may be severely limited.
 
Access to the White House is already limited, according to a number of journalists featured in an April article in Politico. Most of the White House reporters with whom Politico spoke wished to remain anonymous, but they told the political news site that the relationship with Obama and the media is “hostile” and “as contentious on a day-to-day basis as any between press and president in the past decade.” In a situation where many reporters are already unhappy with limited access to government officials, it isn’t surprising to think that the McChrystal incident could result in even less availability.
 
And although McChrystal had staff media aides and may have received media training, future officials could be subject to even more preparation for dealing with the media, which could further wipe out the "candor" displayed by McChrystal and company in the Rolling Stone piece.
 
We may never know or understand exactly why McChrystal was so honest and critical with Hastings, but the tension exposed is a matter of public interest because it involves public servants and a publicly-funded war. And the issues McChrystal describes may not have come to light to this degree had Hastings been denied access to McChrystal. And during wartime, the truthful, direct reporting, like that in "The Runaway General," is one of the few vital tools we have to hold the government accountable for its decisions. 
 
Read more from YPNation on McChrystal and Obama's flailing foreign policy.
 
 
(Photo credit: Graham Ballantyne; C.C. 2.0)