Nov 14, 2013: Jack Shafer (Reuters) has a very enlightening article out now titled simply "Your "exclusive" interview isn't.". Along with lots of other good insights, he writes: ".......most pieces billed as an exclusive interview are usually no more exclusive than a seat in a public commode. The Financial Times, which knows better, frequently indulges the inner urge to hype its work by describing conversations with such people as Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama, and Ratan Tata as “exclusive interviews” when honesty-in-packaging would dictate that they limit their boast to “we were the only publication in the room when this voluble world figure sounded off.” Or take Newsweek’s recent piece about investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, a man who never shuts up, which was unashamedly billed as an “exclusive interview.” Or CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta’s recent chat with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, which the network deemed “exclusive,” or Barbara Walters sitting down “exclusively” with Fox News correspondent Howard Kurtz to talk about her departure from “The View.” Nearly every recent interview with Richard Branson (Inc., Jetset, Human Resources Director, Reuters, Thought Economics, 103.7 FM’s Morning Ride, et al.) regards routine access to the billionaire as “exclusive.” (Perhaps he stipulates it contractually?) The more powerful the subject, the greater the tendency of the press to bill the interview an exclusive, which means that a session with the president of the United States — no matter how brief or devoid of substance — almost always gets the billing as long as none of the reporter’s competitors are in the room at the same moment."

---