Covering what the W.H. does, not what it says

On Charlie Savage's Pulitzer:

Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting yesterday, "for his revelations that President Bush often used 'signing statements' to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws."

The stories that won Savage his prize are certainly familiar to White House Watch readers -- and yet worth rereading.

And here's a question White House correspondents should be asking themselves today: How did an investigative reporter at a regional newspaper end up winning an award on their beat?

According to Globe Editor Martin Baron, the answer is: "What Charlie does and the reason he won this richly deserved Pulitzer is because he covered what the White House does, not just what it says."

Another thing to keep in mind: For entirely too long, Savage was a one-man band on this important national story.

As Howard Kurtz writes in The Washington Post: "Savage said that although his reports spurred wide debate among opinion writers, other publications were slow in 'legitimizing it' with news coverage. 'There were some months there when it was kind of lonely,' he said."

Readers of this column know I was a big fan of Savage's reporting and frequently expressed dismay that other news outlets weren't pursuing the story. I summed up my dismay in a long story for NiemanWatchdog in June.

And in my August 2 column, I contrasted the lack of coverage by Washington's biggest newsrooms with the "outpouring of editorials at small- and medium-sized newspapers across the country," which I wrote indicated that "there may be something about violating the Constitution that riles up Americans no matter where they live or where they stand on the political spectrum."

Why didn't other newsrooms -- and the White Hous press corps -- take up the signing statement story and run with it? I still don't know. Maybe Savage's Pulitzer will be a wake-up call of sorts.

I think Froomkin gives the White House press corps too much credit for being "wakeable." They didn't wake up when WMD claims proved to have been hyped; they didn't wake up when they thought that preznit's aggressive campaign to privatize Social Security would put Dems between a rock and a hard place, but instead was met with fear and loathing by the American people; they still haven't woken up in response to the political firings of eight federal attorneys, instead finding it "boring." And they still sleepily assert that Democrats are miscalculating in demanding a timetable for withdrawal as a prerequisite for further funding of the war. No doubt they're angry a Boston Globe reporter poached on their hunting grounds, but I'm sure they'll remain drowsy.

Speaking of Bush's aggressive Social Security campaign...