Week in Review

Daily guidance

Our reporters get their stories from a number of places, but much of the “meat and potatoes” coverage comes from the daily briefings at the White House, Pentagon and State Department.

These events, usually about an hour in length, permit the reporters to seek official comment on the stories of the day or to try to confirm something they might be working on. The trick for administration officials is to make sure they give the same answers to questions at all three venues.

To that end, officials from the three spokesmen’s offices get together early each morning, monitor the morning newspapers and television talk shows and try to anticipate any questions that will be asked.

Queries then go out to the appropriate departments so that proper answers can be fashioned, and the results are compiled in a daily “guidance” book provided to the three spokesmen.

So Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, was well prepared on Monday for questions on a front-page story in The Washington Times stating millions of dollars in U.S. economic assistance had gone to two Palestinian universities that had supported or glorified terrorism.

“I anticipated your question,” Mr. McCormack said in response to the first question. “They gave me a whole bunch of materials on this. So let me flip through here and get to the right spot, because there’s a lot in this Washington Times article.”

Indeed, Mr. McCormack had plenty to say about the story. We only wish the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had been as forthcoming with freelance reporter Joel Mowbray, who spent the better part of a week trying to get the agency to explain the rationale for the grants before the story was published.

Figures confirmed

After repeated requests over a number of days, the agency offered some limited comments to Mr. Mowbray, telling him that all recipients of U.S. aid at the two universities had been carefully vetted for any links to terrorists.

Mr. Mowbray also managed, with some difficulty, to extract exact figures on the amount of aid that had been provided and exactly where it had gone. All this was included in the article.

We also had pressed Mr. Mowbray for additional details on the connections between the two schools and organizations such as Hamas, which are listed by the United States as sponsoring or participating in terrorism. That also was included.

At his briefing, Mr. McCormack went on at length about the vetting procedure, concluding that USAID was “confident that the organizations … as well as the individuals who are recipients of USAID funding, have passed all U.S. government anti-terrorism vetting procedures.”

Questioned further about the amount of aid, Mr. McCormack essentially confirmed all of our figures. No questions were raised on our reporting of activities at the schools, including a weeklong celebration honoring the inventor of the suicide belt. About the only thing in our story that the spokesman challenged was a line that characterized Islamic University as “Hamas-controlled.”

We were disappointed, therefore, when the Associated Press published an article from the briefing with a lead that said the State Department had “denied a Washington Times report” about funding for the universities.

Story Continues →