WITH NO CONSERVATIVES IN THE ROOM, A CONTRARIAN SUFFICES:

Jake Tapper Isn't Letting Go: Keeping the White House accountable. (Mark Hemingway, 4/06/09, National Review)

As a rule, journalists are supposed to be tough on the people they’re covering, and Tapper is more interested in making sure he’s doing his job than in pointing fingers at his colleagues. “I hope I’m tough and consistent. I can’t say I always achieve that stance, but I do aspire to it,” he says. “In general, I have affection and respect for my White House colleagues and probably the more I’m a reporter and the less I’m a media critic the better.”

He’s also keenly aware that there’s a problem when the reporter becomes too much a part of the story. While his exchange with Robert Gibbs elevated his profile, that was not his objective. “The YouTubed exchange with Gibbs is a perfect example of something I didn’t care for, not because I think I was wrong, but because the tone of that conversation took focus away from the more important issue — transparency — and put it where I don’t particularly care for it, into a debate about me and Gibbs and who was right and who got the better of whom. Which serves no one,” Tapper says.

Another big concern for Tapper is coming down with a bad case of Beltway-itis. Asked whether the Washington press corps gets too focused on issues of little consequence to average Americans, Tapper readily admits that’s the case.

“Yes, we do. But that doesn’t mean they’re not important or that, framed differently, they aren’t significant. I don’t know how much the average American cares about the former lobbyists in the president’s administration, or whether the budget bill will be subject to 50 or 60 votes,” he says. “But both mean something in terms of the president’s commitments to reforming Washington and bipartisanship, respectively.”

But when it comes to avoiding the Beltway herd instinct, perhaps Tapper benefits from a somewhat eclectic career trajectory that gives him a broader perspective than fellow journalists with more traditional career paths might have. Early in his career he worked in politics, in the office of Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, a one-term Democrat from Pennsylvania. Tapper’s also worked in public relations, as a professional cartoonist, and for a diverse array of publications and media outlets — including the Washington City Paper, where he wrote a now infamous story about having dated Monica Lewinsky a few weeks before news of her affair with the president broke. A significant amount of his work in journalism has also been well outside the realm of politics — including a stint with cable music network VH1.

“I think working early on in my career on Capitol Hill enabled me to see how Washington really works, and working in various media outlets enabled me to learn about journalism and broadcasting,” Tapper observes. “I can tell you, though, that the special I did for VH1 on Lynyrd Skynyrd brought me some Republican fans.”

And then there’s the pressure of the job. “I know I’m not alone among journalists in carrying with me the memory of every mistake I’ve ever made in my career,” Tapper says. “And it is stressful not to add to the catalogue.”

It would probably be a lot less stressful if Tapper chased the conventional wisdom, as a great many Washington reporters do. For now, Tapper is continuing the battle he started with Robert Gibbs over government transparency. It’s not even as if he feels the Obama administration is particularly bad on the issue — it’s just that Obama promised so much. And Tapper sees it as his job to hold him accountable.