Posted on 05/11/2016 5:41:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
resident Obama's political appointees are not only celebrated by the media as the best and brightest America has to offer; they are promoted as being so bright that they are allowed to boast about how they masterfully manipulate the press, like sculpting a can of smelly, journalistic Play-Doh.
The New York Times Magazine wrote a long profile of Obama's deputy national security advisor for strategic communications -- his foreign-policy communications whiz -- Ben Rhodes, lauded as "the master shaper and retailer of Obama's foreign-policy narratives, at a time when the killer wave of social media has washed away the sand castles of the traditional press."
Don't blame social media for the traditional media's adoration of Obama. "Rhodes has become adept at ventriloquizing many people at once," wrote David Samuels for the Times. He and his fellow ventriloquists first enter briefing rooms to dazzle and deceive the dedicated journalists with certain beats. Then, there are the "force multipliers," described as "prominent Washington reporters and columnists who often tweet in sync with White House messaging."
In short, Rhodes declared, "We created an echo chamber."
Rhodes exploited the fact that when newspapers close foreign bureaus to economize on staff, the gray beards disappear. Now, "They call us (at the White House) to explain to them what's happening in Moscow and Cairo," Rhodes proclaimed. "Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That's a sea change. They literally know nothing."
Exhibit A of the "master shaper" Rhodes bending the press to Obama's will was the Iran arms deal. The Times explained that Obama's team exploited the press by pretending the 2013 election of President Hassan Rouhani and a "moderate" faction of the Iranian regime presented a brand-new opportunity to strike an Iran deal. But in reality, the Obama negotiators began talking to Iran in July of 2012, almost a year before the election. This false narrative entered the echo chamber. Polls showed that the American public didn't like the Iran deal, but the media just shouted over them with recycled Obama lingo about the "historic" and "landmark" agreement.
Another example that wasn't mentioned by the Times is the death of four Americans at Benghazi. In 2012, Rhodes easily ventriloquized the media with the bizarre spin that the U.S. Consulate wasn't subjected to a terrorist attack, but that it suffered from a spontaneous protest over an internet video mocking the Prophet Muhammad. Even after Team Obama was forced to relent on this blatantly false talking point, the ventriloquist dummies wouldn't focus on how they had been used.
Just last week, Fox News' chief Washington, D.C., correspondent James Rosen told host Bill O'Reilly that the State Department blatantly lied to him when he asked about the Iran deal negotiations timeline.
"I can attest directly that the Obama administration, in the person of then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, of whom I am very fond, Bill, flat-out lied to me in February 2013," Rosen said. "When I showed up in the briefing room at the State Department I asked, point blank, 'Are there any direct talks going on between the U.S. and Iran of any kind?' and she said 'no,' at a point when those talks had been ongoing for eight months."
The next step naturally followed. The other networks all ignored the kerfuffle over the Rhodes boasts as some sort of inside-the-Beltway snoozefest. The last thing a supine media wants to report is just how supine it is, even when the accuser is the liberal "master shaper and retailer" of Obama's narratives.
Release the baloney
Via Jerry Mahoney
Young knowledge is not substitute of aged wisdom.
The press has an incestuous relationship (literally) with this president. So many siblings and spouses of white house staff are running news organizations.
The press will get back to its investigate combative roots once a Republican is in office.
How hard is it to manipulate an adoring press that won’t question anything you say and attacks anyone who dare does such a thing?
The Media supports Obama. If an intrepid “journalist” asked Obama a tough question eg “Mr. President. Are your homosexual policies a reflection of the fact that you yourself are a closet homosexual?” or “Did you not claim you were a foreign student while at Harvard Law?”, that journalist would be fired immediately by his “progressive” bosses.
Not much of a feat. Any DEM is able to do that, without even trying. It’s automatic on the part of the press.
One party system with a lapdog media, what could go wrong?
The press is painted as mindless followers here. Nice cover story but I don’t think that’s the case. They are in it up to their necks... willingly.
This is news?
Yeah....
Bingo...that should be a crime in itself...
By February of 2010, I never wondered who it was that made the dummy talk, and I always knew it wasn’t Paul Winchell.
Make that February of 2009.
The leftist press is not being "used." The members of the liberal press consider themselves to be Democratic operatives. They lie consciously and willing in the service of their cause and candidate, and they fully expect to be rewarded for their service.
Finally, something liberals and conservatives can agree on...
Plenty of blame to go around, but the lion’s share goes on what Philly radio legend Irv Homer called Boobus America. We have too many people who buy into whatever the media tell them.
“The press will get back to its investigate combative roots once a Republican is in office.”
It will be all scandals and suspicion all the time.
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.