![]() ( Also on POLITICO: Who’s up, who’s down in ‘This Town’) “If you’re going to have a party filled with ostensibly public people, whether they are public because they’re elected to something or public because they are working all day to build their brand on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, I mean, I think like the whole notion of what is public and what is private has turned on its head, and that’s the era we’re living in,” he said. The off-the-record meeting, Burt said, allowed subject and reporter to connect in a low-pressure setting that ended up helping both.įor his part, Leibovich says that he is “always working as a journalist.” And furthermore, he adds, it’s a real circus out there. “ must have made a judgment that it was worth it,” says one local businesswoman who has invited the reporter to events, “because I have to believe people will think twice before inviting him again.”įormer Reagan White House Social Secretary Gahl Burt contends that there are indeed “unwritten rules of decorum” in the capital, and frets that books like Leibovich’s have contributed to “a breakdown in loyalty and privacy.” She referenced a recent party at her place where a national political reporter was able to meet a White House aide who was refusing to cooperate on a profile. ( PHOTOS: People in Mark Leibovich’s ‘The Town’) The betrayal! Not since Truman Capote’s “Answered Prayers” knocked New York society on its heels with its thinly fictionalized revelations of real players who had thought the author was their friend has a book so riled a city’s upper echelons. ![]() Leibovich - or “Leibo” as he is called affectionately - is a self-admitted member of “The Club” and a popular New York Times reporter who is being privately assailed for exploiting his access to parties in order to skewer other members of The Club. And unless you are officially covering a tony party with notebook visibly in hand, or camera visible, you’re expected to be, well, circumspect. What has rattled many is that Leibovich did a chunk of his reporting at parties and funerals at which he was considered a guest - or, at least, not a working journalist taking detailed notes.įor better or worse, there have long been some unwritten guidelines in Washington about what’s fair game - and what’s a cheap shot - in the coverage of social events. Indeed, the nation’s capital is in full spasm over Mark Leibovich’s cutting takedown of the city’s cozy culture in his new book, “This Town.” The fear: That it will send a chill through the elite after-hours social circuit - where the real business of this town often gets done between reporters and sources.
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