Posted on 10/12/2013 6:01:14 PM PDT by Kaslin
Trashing the "excessive secrecy" of the Bush administration, Barack Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen far short of that promise. Former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie released their tough report at the Committee to Protect Journalists on the Obama administration’s tight control and aggressive prosecution of leaks. The first sentence: "In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press."
What sets the Obama administration apart from others, said Downie, is not its attempt to control the media narrative but rather its shameless ability to do so.
What’s significant here is the very sophisticated, very successful, very determined way they’ve gone about doing this,” Downie told The Nation magazine. “Most administrations aren’t very successful. This one has been very tightly disciplined.”
Downie was most surprised by the unanimity of those reporters about the ways the administration has made their jobs more difficult, and he compared them to Nixon and the Watergate scandal:
The administration's war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post's investigation of Watergate. The 30 experienced Washington journalists at a variety of news organizations whom I interviewed for this report could not remember any precedent.
The report includes quotes from reporters like Michael Oreskes, the senior managing editor at the Associated Press. "There's no question that sources are looking over their shoulders....Sources are more jittery and more standoffish, not just in national security reporting. A lot of skittishness is at the more routine level. The Obama administration has been extremely controlling and extremely resistant to journalistic intervention."
Ellen Weiss, Washington bureau chief for E.W. Scripps newspapers and stations, said “the Obama administration is far worse than the Bush administration”in trying to thwart accountability reporting about government agencies.
Financial Times correspondent Richard McGregor told me that, after coming to Washington several years ago from a posting in China, he was surprised to find that “covering this White House is pretty miserable in terms of getting anything of substance to report on in what should be a much more open system. If the U.S. starts backsliding, it is not only a bad example for more closed states, but also for other democracies that have been influenced by the U.S.” to make their governments more transparent.
“The Bush administration had a worse reputation,” said Marcus Brauchli, Downie’s immediate successor as executive editor of The Washington Post, “but, in practice, it was much more accepting of the role of journalism in national security.”
We have a Hitler in the bunker. Its time to go to work my friends. Stay on the boards every second.
Do they quash any of those stories too? Or do they just ruthlessly squash them?
“The Bush administration had a worse reputation,” said Marcus Brauchli,
Oh this is rich.......first of all there is no way Bush had any secrets, if he was accused of one it was a manufactured secret. Secondly, Bush’s reputation was destroyed with the daily accusations and lies put forth by the rats and their journalist cohorts.
>>>“The Bush administration had a worse reputation,”>>>
The Bush administration had a worse reputation? Oh well, what do you expect from the WaPo? They so leftist their desks all lean over sideways. It’s the only way they can work.
Bump
Oh please. The media has held out the “spike” for Obama’s folks to kill stories and if they haven’t, then the media has done it for them. What a crock.
then why does the media protect and cover for him?
I don’t blame you at all. We all are tired of it
The negative reputation was made up by the drive-by media. President Bush served honorable in the highest Office of the Country unlike that arrogant pos that currently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
He wouldn’t be even a fourth as successful at it without a willingly complicit press.
The “news” media are willing participants in real news suppression. The Zero King is their own selected despot.
Yes, a little Hitler there. And what’s with the press? Surely he is not threatening them with death camps? Is there no testosterone there? Is there nothing they will make a stand for? Can’t they see how cowardly it is to let themselves be intimidated in a FREE COUNTRY by a president who considers himself above the law? There must be a large number of them by now?
please, 99% of the stories spiked are spiked by the L$M itself...
these SCM should look in the mirror.....bammey the boy would not get away with anything if we had an adversarial media in this country, like it used to be....God knows they have given every single Republican a Hell of a inquisition....still do....
pathetic little wimps....
This is BS. The Obama administration has been successful because the journalists allowed them to be successful. If they wrote front page after front page articles about those administration abuses and lack of transparency, this wouldn’t be happening. But they are cut from the same political cloth, and have decided never to criticize him no matter what he does.
The crazy thing is, when the whip comes down, these very people will be the first ones Obama kills.
It's not that they're more disciplined or clever the liberal media has simply rolled over for them ... to the extent the Clinton years (the last time the liberal MSM rolled over for the 'rats) are pale by comparison.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.