Don't Quote Me On That

A journalist on the inside discovers that he still has to play by their rules:

Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” was granted extraordinary access to President Obama for his latest article in Vanity Fair.

But with that access came one major condition.

Like other journalists who write about Washington and presidential politics, Mr. Lewis said that he had to submit to the widespread but rarely disclosed practice of quote approval.

During a discussion at Lincoln Center on Monday night with Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, Mr. Lewis volunteered to the audience that as a condition of cooperating with his story, the White House insisted on signing off on the quotes that would appear.
....

In the discussion with Mr. Carter on Monday, Mr. Lewis described a White House staff that seemed to be extremely wary of his presence around the president. He said that in one exchange with Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, Mr. Carney expressed reservations about cooperating. But ultimately, Mr. Lewis recalled Mr. Carney saying, his concerns didn’t matter because the boss wanted to do the story.

It's always easier to get official approval...