Reporter stands by work
Posted: Friday, March 07, 2008 5:32 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From MSNBC's Adam Verdugo
The reporter who set off a political firestorm that led to the resignation of an Obama senior advisor today is standing by her reporting.
"Of course, I'm saddened from a personal point of view, because she's actually a very intelligent, articulate woman and her heart seems to be in the right place," Gerri Peev said today in an interview on MSNBC with Norah O'Donnell. "I don't know of any journalist worth their salt who would have pulled her remark. We're not in the business to self-censor or to censor ourselves."
According to Peev, the interview with Samantha Power was initially arranged to publicize a recent book authored by the Obama advisor. During the interview, Power received a phone call from another "special advisor" to the campaign.
"I fiddled around with the tape recorder, and she kindly waited for me to switch it back on," Peev said. "So she knew it was going to be recorded."
Peev continued the interview with Power and notes that she, "described a little bit of the context of the phone call and that things hadn't gone so well in Ohio for the campaign that day." Power told Peev "We f***** up in Ohio," referring to the campaign.
When pressed about why she published a quote, which Power had called off-the record, Peev responded: "I don't know what the convention is in American journalism, but in Britain here we have very firm rules about the fact that generally, you establish whether a conversation or interview is on or off the record before it actually happens.
"She made some off-the-cuff remarks which were on the record. She even waited for the tape to start recording and then I think once she noticed that they were quite controversial she tried to withdraw just that very remark about Hillary allegedly being a monster."
Peev said that she had received an "unofficial clarification phone call" from the Obama campaign, but of course, that conversation was "off-the-record."
