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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVeep Debate Moderator Page Hosted Party Honoring Pence Protege Verma
In circles of journalism far from my own, particularly within the Beltway, its considered appropriate for journalists and the power brokers they cover to see each other socially, particularly if they are perceived as needing each others help to climb the slippery slope to fame. That is apparently the rationalization for the otherwise very fishy discovery that the moderator for next months vice-presidential candidate debate, veteran journalist (now with USA Today) Susan Page, hosted a party late in 2018 in honor of Mike Pences powerful protégé Seema Verma, who runs the Medicare and Medicaid programs for the Trump administration.
The party, dubbed a girls night, came to light as part of a U.S. House report (made public by Politico) on pretty heavy taxpayer-subsidized spending by organizer and Republican public relations type Pam Stevens as part of an effort to raise Vermas profile or improve her brand or whatever euphemism for aggrandizement of the already-powerful you prefer. Turns out Page, not John Q. Public, paid the four grand or so for Vermas party, but perhaps Stevens separately billed the feds for her consulting work on the event. In any event, the controversy isnt really about who paid for the party, but whether a working journalist at Pages level who has been hobnobbing with Mike Pences best-known associate in the Trump administration ought to be moderating his debate with Kamala Harris. Matt Yglesias thinks the answer is clearly no.
The taxpayer-funded party in Vermas honor was held at the home of @SusanPage, who is scheduled to moderate the VP debate this fall but will hopefully be removed. https://t.co/w0Wi2vrMbj
Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) September 10, 2020
The question isnt whether Page should have hosted this particular gathering, but whether journalists should be routinely hosting social events for the kind of people they are supposed to be covering. Yes, Old Girls Networks like this are more understandable and less ethically objectionable than the Old Boys Networks they emulate, but they still promote the very idea of insular Beltway elites that helped feed the rise of Vermas and Pences mutual boss Donald Trump. Indeed, one of the few Trump accomplishments I truly applaud is his successful effort to sabotage the annual White House Correspondents Dinner (a.k.a. the Nerd Prom), wherein journalists and Washington officialdom gathered to lightly tease each other in ways that signaled they had more in common than their very different roles might suggest.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/veep-debate-moderator-hosted-dinner-honoring-pence-protg.html
This article is from Sept. 10th. Just a reminder, since everyday there's new outrages and it's hard to keep track of everything.
LiberalFighter
(51,103 posts)Me.
(35,454 posts)is it all just a big joke to them? TAXPAYER funded...wth?
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)LiberalFighter
(51,103 posts)ananda
(28,877 posts)They can both handle any kind of debate format or moderator.
SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)Kamala should not do this for safety concerns.
elleng
(131,138 posts)a 1973 graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where she was editor-in-chief of the Daily Northwestern, and has a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she was a Pulitzer Fellow.
Page has covered six White House administrations and 10 presidential elections, and interviewed the past nine presidents. She founded and hosts an award-winning video newsmaker series for USA Today, "Capital Download." She appears frequently on cable news networks as an analyst and often guest-hosted The Diane Rehm Show, which was syndicated on National Public Radio. She was the first woman to serve as music chairman of the Gridiron Club show and was the president of the club, the oldest association of journalists in Washington, in 2011. She was president of the White House Correspondents Association in 2000. She also served as chairman of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and has twice been a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes.
Her first book was published in 2019, a biography of former First Lady Barbara Bush titled The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty.[3] Also in 2019, she signed a deal to write a biography of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tentatively titled Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Arc of Power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Page
ihas2stinkyfeet
(1,400 posts)by their j-school dopes.
i have a little urban farm, and a fb page, so a few of them have found me.
they are idiots. gotta be the worst school in the system.
BComplex
(8,067 posts)octoberlib
(14,971 posts)BComplex
(8,067 posts)BSdetect
(8,999 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,323 posts)The corruption is everywhere the GOO treads