All dressed up with nowhere to report

There is an old Army saying that sometimes the leader is simply the person who “remembers where the jeep is parked.”

Lately, I have wondered whether American journalism remembers at all.

Journalism is not finished when the reporter has sought the truth. It is finished when the public can see the truth clearly enough to act on it.

At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, the nation’s premier access participants gathered for their annual prom. Evening wear is nice, but it does make searching for a parked jeep more difficult.

Watching them, I kept thinking about access: who receives it, why they receive it, and what they owe the people who cannot enter those rooms.

I have spent 40 years in rooms where vague answers could cost someone dearly.