Media outlets refuse off-the-record meeting with Holder

Several news organizations invited to meet this week with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the Justice Department's guidelines governing security leak investigations that involve reporters are refusing the invitation citing the meeting's off-the-record status.

A Justice Department official said Wednesday that the meeting with select bureau chiefs will be off-the-record to "best facilitate the candid, free-flowing discussions we hope to have in order to bring about meaningful engagement."

By Thursday midday, representatives from CNN and Huffington Post had joined the Associated Press and The New York Times in deciding to boycott the meeting due to its off-the-record status.

Holder called the meetings this week as part of a department review directed by President Barack Obama following controversy over the secret seizure of Associated Press reporters' and editors' phone records and secret monitoring of Fox News reporter James Rosen.

"CNN will decline the invitation for an off-the-record meeting," the news outlet noted in its coverage of the meeting Thursday. "A CNN spokesperson says if the meeting with the attorney general is on the record, CNN would plan to participate."

Erin Madigan White, the AP's media relations manager, said in a widely circulated statement Wednesday that "if it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter,"

"It isn't appropriate for us to attend an off-the-record meeting with the attorney general," New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson said in a statement.

So who is going?

ABC News, a partner of Yahoo News, has confirmed its decision to send a representative. And Politico is also rejecting the boycott. "As editor in chief, I routinely have off-the-record conversations with people who have questions or grievances about our coverage or our news gathering practices," John Harris wrote in an email. "I feel anyone?whether an official or ordinary reader?should be able to have an unguarded conversation with someone in a position of accountability for a news organization when there is good reason."

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to Yahoo News' request for comment Thursday on the boycott.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/select-media-outlets-turn-down-eric-holder-meeting-162920717.html

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