Posted on 05/01/2010 12:45:33 PM PDT by abb
The Associated Press, normally a vigorous defender of sunshine laws, appears to have lobbied behind the scenes to quash the release of e-mails that circulated among its reporters and press aides for New York Gov. David Paterson under New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).
I reported yesterday that Hearst Corporation, which owns the Albany Times-Union, was threatening to object to a FOIL request I filed earlier this year seeking e-mails among Paterson's former communications director Peter Kauffmann, his former press secretary Marissa Shorenstein, and representatives of a variety of news organizations. The Hearst Corporation's justification for that stance was that the identities of confidential sources could have been revealed in the e-mails a highly unusual position for a news organization that usually fights on the other side of freedom-of-information disputes.
Late yesterday, the governor's office denied my request (and a similar one filed by the Columbia Journalism Review), on the grounds that New York's shield law for journalists prevents the e-mails' release. Since then, I've learned that in recent weeks the governor's office alerted all the news organizations whose reporters' e-mails would have been released under my request and gave them an opportunity to object. Among the outlets raising such objections was the AP and the wire service also refuses to deny a report that it took the extra measure of bringing in an outside attorney to shut down my request.
The governor's office says it found more than 1,200 pages of e-mails among Shorenstein, Kauffmann, and reporters from early 2010. During that time, rumors of a damaging New York Times story about Paterson and some members of his staff were swirling around the state and the nation.
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
ping
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2010/04/washingtons_dailies_see_subscriber_exodus.html
Washingtons dailies see subscriber exodus
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hOSrp-uxxzdg3DYhyKaLfx-fdx2wD9FD002O1
Budget cuts likely in wake of Philly news auction
The AP is so corrupt. They make the old Pravda look ethical.
The emails probably show them planning how to make things look bad for the Republicans.
“All the news that fits (our point of view)”
AP believes news is what advances the Party line.
bttt
bookmark.
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