I came across a story last week that demonstrates how we journalists too often expose ourselves to charges of hypocrisy and keeping double-standards.The Columbia Journalism Review reported on an event at a Washington-area conference for journalism professors that featured a panel of reporters who cover the U.S. Supreme Court. C-SPAN decided its audience of political junkies would be interested in hearing what these prominent journalists had to say about their work with one of our nation’s most powerful government institutions. So C-SPAN sent a camera crew to record the panel discussion for broadcast.But one of the panelists, Linda Greenhouse from the New York Times, objected to C-SPAN’s presence and refused to appear on the panel if the cameras rolled. Greenhouse has won the Pulitzer Prize, journalism’s top honor, and was considered the featured speaker, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. So she got her way and no video was taken.There’s some dispute about whether the panelists received enough advance notice that C-SPAN would there. But I’m baffled by Greenhouse’s justification for putting her foot down. She said she agreed to appear as part of a "private" discussion with a group of professors. She wasn’t going to speak candidly about what she does for a national audience.For all of her journalism skills and experience, Greenhouse would appear to have a poor grasp on the difference between private and public. A private conservation takes place one-on-one or in very small groups of people. Speaking to a group of 50 strangers, with other journalists present, is by definition a public setting. That implies a journalist can’t control to whom or where his or her comments might be repeated. The only thing a journalist can control is what he or she says.This issue is significant because Supreme Court justices have a rather bad habit of speaking in public settings but insisting their comments can’t be recorded. This allows the justices to later shade or even deny what they originally said, in order to deflect any negative reaction. No audio or video means taking the word of a justice over what some nobody in the audience claims to have heard.I don’t know if Greenhouse has ever been critical of the justices for this. But she should not appear to justify their behavior by repeating in her own actions.http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_greenhouse_effect.php

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