Froomkin Offers Advice to Reporters on Covering 'Torture' Debate

By: E&P Staff In his daily White House Briefing column today at washingtonpost.com, Dan Froomkin surveys some of the reaction to the "compromise" deal between Republican leaders and the White House on interrogation methods and related issues. Among other things, he points to some harshly critical editorials and columns, and suggests that the compromise was actually a cave-in to the White House.

That will surely be debated, but in the meantime, he looks to the future, offering the following advice to the media in covering this subject.

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Members of the traditional press were paying scant attention to the issue of state-sanctioned torture until a rift appeared within the Republican party itself. That, in Washington, qualifies as high drama.

And now that the rift has been papered over, most reporters' tendencies will be to cover the issue mostly from the angle of its effectiveness as a political cudgel in the mid-term elections.

But the American public deserves to hear a full and open debate on this important moral issue. And if Congress won't host it, then it's up to the Fourth Estate to rise to the challenge.

Step one would be some actual reporting into the CIA interrogation program, including aggressive truth-squadding of the assertions coming from the White House. President Bush, for instance, yesterday called the program the "most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks."

Can he back that up? What little investigative reporting I've seen on the program thus far, by Ron Suskind among others, suggests that Bush's assertion is exaggerated or just plain wrong -- and that in fact the use of torture or near-torture has produced little or no valuable information. It's imperative that the media give the public a better sense of whether Bush is credible on this issue.

Here's a question reporters should be asking: If, as Suskind has alleged, the administration is aware that those harsh CIA interrogation tactics don't really work -- and no one is currently in CIA detention anyway -- then why is this such an important issue for the White House? One possible answer: That this has nothing to do with the future; that it's about giving them cover for their actions in the past.

Here's another question reporters should be asking: Have the senators been assured that Vice President Cheney won't get Bush to attach a "signing statement" to this bill, asserting his inherent powers, as he did the last time he signed torture legislation?

Finally, as the White House gears up to use detainee policy as a political issue, it is incumbent on the press to remind the public that there are not only two choices: Doing it Bush's way and letting terrorists go free. Even if the Democrats aren't coherent about other alternatives, the press should be.
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The entire column with links can be found here.