BY MICHAEL JOHNSON

Every author wants to be popular enough to make a living from their efforts.  But more and more journalists are cutting financial deals and skirting their own professional code of ethics to get on the best seller lists.

The reigning king of  journalist bookdom is the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward.  But this year, according to Reliable Sources columnist Howard Kurtz there is a stampede of journalists headed toward the publishers’ doors.

Many of the top names in national political journalism writing for fun and profit include Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, NBC’s Chuck Todd, and MSNBC’s Richard Wolffe; the Post’s David Maraniss; the New York Times’ Jodi Kantor and New Yorker writers David Remnick and Ryan Lizza, according to Kurtz.   Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin and New York Magazine’s John Heilemann just published their moneymaker called Game Change and they have already signed a multi-million contract for a 2012 tome, according to Kurtz.

Most of the books have five common traits:

1.    The books appear to be researched, written, promoted and published under sweetheart financial arrangements with the news organization for whom the author (s) works or with other news organizations that agree to publish excerpts or otherwise promote the book.
2.    We are never entirely sure whether deals have been made because the financial arrangements are seldom if ever disclosed to the public.
3.    The success of the books is contingent upon them containing sensational, previously undisclosed revelations, which the authors and news organizations withhold from the public until the week or so before publication to hype sales.
4.    Much of the sensational news withheld from the public is obtained from anonymous sources.
5.    The authors and presumably the news organizations with whom they have made deals, seem to make a lot of money.

Now, Kurtz identifies a sixth element.  The ever-growing appetite for titillating tales and hidden secrets that will vault these books onto the bestseller list is putting a lot of strain on the time of White House (and presumably congressional) staff who should be focused on the economy, energy, immigration and national security.  That is a serious problem in a lot of respects.

And there are at least four others with these books.

1.    They violate the public’s right to know.  It’s clear that the authors and news organizations deliberately withhold information of  presumably “Page 1” news value for weeks and months so it can be disclosed only after it has been carefully packaged as part of a marketing campaign for the book.  The examples are endless, from the revelations Bob Woodward gleaned from CIA Director Bill Casey to the Game Change disclosures regarding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. There are no excuses.  Any journalist who has news that affects the public welfare is obligated to disclose it immediately, unless there is a national security concern. You are either a book author or a working journalist.
2.    They violate the public trust.  Much of the headline-making news in them is obtained from anonymous sources. The potential for abuse is staggering.  These sourcing practices give far too much latitude to the journalist and the source, with little or no visible oversight and no way to verify the veracity of the disclosures.  The great potential for faulty, false, unbalanced or exaggerated information–most of the time damaging to the reputation and character of a central figure in the book–should be unacceptable to any news organization and the consuming public.
3.    The books are sometimes touted as history, but they seem to be more story telling than history telling. They are, at best, docudrama.
4.    They take attention away from serious issues and events.  While books contain worthwhile information and insights, they end up feeding a perception of politics and government that is neither accurate nor healthy. They do so by trying to satisfy a nasty public appetite for gossip, innuendo, sex scandals, and other forms of ‘gotcha’ journalism.

In the end only the consuming public can discourage the publication of titillating tomes, but there are steps that can be taken to clean up the process.

1.    News organizations should prohibit active journalists from researching and writing books related to the subjects they cover for the news organization on company time.
2.    News organizations should prevent journalists from exploiting, for their own personal gain, the relationships they have developed among government officials while in the employ of the news organization.
3.    News organizations should fully disclose the financial details of  book promotion arrangements, particularly those that may represent a conflict of interest between the news organization’s financial interests and its judgment about what is legitimate “page 1” news.
4.    News organizations should tighten and full disclose the reglations and enforcement procedures that govern the use of anonymous sources, especially those used by writers who use anonymously sourced information to propel their work into the headlines.
5.    The President and leaders in Congress can discourage or restrict staff from contributing to book projects while on government property while on the public clock.
6.    The public should exercise some self-discipline, save their money and buy something worthwhile like Girl Scout cookies.