The Outside Scoop

...That would never happen in Tokyo,” Sasaki says...

...The supposed openness you have in America, which I thought was great when I arrived, I now see isn’t so great, because you tend to be confined to the [president’s] plane,” says Lionel Barber of London’s Financial llrnes...

...Again, not true...

...From Italy’s Ennio Caretto of La Repubblica: “Lots of European countries, especially Germany, have shown that industry can carry a large part of the burden of ensuring public welfare and still be competitive...

...The follow-up is temble,” says one member of the foreign press who asked not to be named...

...It seems to me that it’s no more than an empty public relations slogan...

...Most foreign reporters noted that in their own countries, not only are there comparable institutions that allow the press to question their leaders, but reporters from all news organizations are given the opportunity to ask questions...

...He now prefers to “scrum” with reporters with his back to a staircaseup which he flees at the first unpleasant question, the way Reagan used to leap into a helicopter...

...Still, you say, they should feel privileged just to be here, since back home they’d probably never even get close to their head of state...

...During the Gulf war, no one wanted to ask, ‘What about all the killing?’ ” What else would the foreign press inquire about...

...The S&L issue, for example, has been out there for such a long time, but the president’s been spared having to address this problem, which may cost the American people $500 billion...

...press’s obsession with the day-to-day operations of the Gulf war, which left the fundamental reasons for our involvement there largely unexamined...

...These days, the home of the free press is giving lessons on how to control it...

...No given subject is pursued to the core, and the president gets off the hook...

...Similarly, several correspondents expressed utter disbelief at the U.S...

...To be sure, none of the foreign journalists was at a total loss for kind words...

...Some expressed amazement at American reporters’ willingness to confront the president and other high officials...

...In Europe,” she says, “you wouldn’t want to know if someone’s having prostate surgery...

...But most were not so impressed...

...If you’re not on the A-list,” says Japan’s Sasaki, “you never get recognized here, but in Japan, I’d say 95 percent of the reporters get treated equally...

...They stand in the back of the room, their raised hands ignored except on the rare occasion that a high official from their own country is present...

...If you broke the White House press corps into castes, foreign journalists would be the untouchables...

...In addition to a parliament that gnlls the prime minister three times each week, he says, Australia boasts a much more adversarial press...

...Like many of her colleagues, Monica Riedler of Austria’s Die Presse is particularly puzzled by American journalists’ fascination with the president’s private life...

...Dederichs says the same is true of Germany...

...Because they can’t...

...Journalists, in my view, should not be transporting public relations...

...I spoke about the White House beat with Washington-based correspondents from 18 different countries, from India to Honduras, and heard a lot less praise than criticism...

...Basically, what they took away was the idea that you didn’t have to do these things...

...Relations with Beijing, says Norman Fu of Taiwan’s China Times...

...Issues go unchallenged here,” a5serts Barrie Cassidy, former press secretary to Australian Prime Minister Robert Hawke and now a freelance reporter...

...Coates Lear...

...And that’s where I think the foreign correspondents have a slight advantage, because you can roam throughout the bureaucracy...

...The first time I met Dan Quay1e”-a man not unaccustomed to dealing with aggressive journalists-“he told me that he’d just been at the [Australian] National Press Club and that it had been ‘just like walking into a bear pit.’ ” Of those who have found American journalists aggressive, many argued that they tend to be so about the wrong issues...

...Why is Bush still convinced that you can’t make industry socially responsible without hurting competitiveness?’ So why don’t the foreign correspondents ask these questions...

...Rest assured, not all foreign visitors come away from White House press conferences unimpressed...

...Shin Sasaki of the Kyodo News Service, for example, recalled his shock when, during one of the debates of the 1988 campaign, CNN’s Bernard Shaw asked Michael Dukakis if his position on the death penalty would change were his own wife raped and killed...

...You drop in on the White House, and then you move on to the Treasury or wherever...

...This indignation from someone who doesn’t even have a personal stake in the system...

...A number complained that our press’s failure to see the big picture allows the president to evade tough questions...

...Sure, access is great here-if you’re with the Times, the Post, or one of the networks...

...Since that visit, MacKenzie notes, Mulroney has held “two to four full-dress press conferences...

...Interviews are never granted, phone calls never returneda practice that does not hold for American reporters overseas...

...The New World Order, says Mario Dederichs of Stem magazine...

...According to Colin MacKenzie of the Canadian Globe and Mail, when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney visited Reagan in 1984, his press people were “blown away” by the White House’s ability to manipulate the media without holding regular press conferences...

...Unsaid things are allowed to remain unsaid,” says Enrique Merino of the EFE Spanish News Agency...