It's most gratifying that people are beginning to wake up to the bullying tactics of the White House toward those in the press who occasionally stray from the government-owned media model, but this has been going on for a while. Posted on 03/01/2013 5:47:36 AM PST by Kaslin
It's most gratifying that people are beginning to wake up to the bullying tactics of the White House toward those in the press who occasionally stray from the government-owned media model, but this has been going on for a while.
Veteran reporter Bob Woodward has said in interviews with Politico and CNN that a White House official warned him he would "regret" publishing a story reporting that the sequestration was President Obama's idea.
"(The White House aide) yelled at me for about a half-hour," said Woodward. The aide later apologized to Woodward in an email and claimed he was not making a threat but merely observing that Woodward would regret "staking out that claim."
Does the aide's story sound credible in light of the context? He was yelling at Woodward, not making a casual observation about Woodward's journalistic accuracy. Why? Because Woodward's account undermines Obama's credibility on the story dominating the political landscape now: the sequestration.
Obama is on another campaign tour, jetting about the nation on the people's dime, accusing Republicans of putting the nation's essential services in jeopardy because they want to protect the rich.
In fact, Republicans have already compromised on raising taxes on the "wealthy," and it is Obama who won't move from his intransigent position, refusing to make spending cuts and reform entitlements. It is simply undeniable that it is Obama who is changing the rules in the middle of the game; tax increases were not to be part of the sequester cuts, and Woodward's reporting confirms this.
Similarly, former Bill Clinton aide Lanny Davis, an Obama supporter, said that a White House official once threatened to revoke The Washington Times' White House credentials over columns Davis had written for the paper. "I couldn't imagine why this call was made," said Davis.
These accounts of White House press intimidation are nothing new. In my books Crimes Against Liberty and The Great Destroyer, I chronicle many other examples of this practice, which is especially bizarre given the unprecedented support the media have lavished upon Obama. Could fear of reprisals be part of the reason?
Let me share a few of the examples.
In Crimes Against Liberty, I relate the White House's war on Fox News Channel, including Obama's snubbing the network by refusing to call on Fox reporters at his press conferences because Fox wouldn't kowtow to his demands to air his third prime-time presser. White House communications director Anita Dunn described Fox as "part of the Republican Party" and "opinion journalism masquerading as news" and recommended a "rapid response" to counteract "Fox's blows" against the administration.
When the White House was upset with The Washington Post for running an op-ed from a Republican politician decrying Obama's 32 czars without challenging it, the White House, according to Time magazine, developed a new strategy to attack pundits. "The White House decided it would become a player, issuing biting attacks on those pundits, politicians and outlets that make what the White House believes to be misleading or simply false claims." Further, "Obama, fresh from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard, cheered on the effort, telling his aides he wanted to 'call 'em out.'"
The White House blog also began regularly denouncing the administration's critics, but the most outrageous development was the reaction to all this by the White House press secretary at the time, Robert Gibbs, who said: "The only way to get somebody to stop crowding the plate is to throw a fastball at them. They move."
In The Great Destroyer, I report that when the Pleasanton Weekly, a small newspaper in California, ran a story that reflected poorly on first lady Michelle Obama (she allegedly acted dismissively toward a Marine One pilot), a White House official asked the paper's president to cut the reference from the article. The first lady's press secretary denied contact with the paper, but the paper stuck by its story and removed the offending sentence "because it was not worth making a fuss over."
The White House also reportedly banished the Boston Herald from an Obama event in Boston as punishment for printing a front-page op-ed by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
When White House press secretary Jay Carney personally called MSNBC to object to certain comments political analyst Mark Halperin had made about Obama, MSNBC immediately suspended Halperin indefinitely, according to The Daily Caller.
The White House blacklisted San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci for posting to the Internet a cellphone video of protesters at an Obama fundraiser in the Bay Area. Characteristically, the White House denied it had threatened the banishment, but the Chronicle's editor, Ward Bushee, stood by the story. Phil Bronstein, another Chronicle reporter, corroborated Bushee's story. Also, numerous other journalists confirmed that the White House had issued implied threats of additional punishment if the story of its banishment of Marinucci became public.
And so it goes.
Let’s not forget one of the other eggregious attacks, this one at Fox, wherein the Bamboozle administration began its call to require programming that reflects “local interests” and the fairness doctrine. (Fox caved by the way moving more to the left).
Very seldom does the White House have to raise it’s voice.
99% of the press is so attached to Obama’s buttocks that they seldom open their eyes.
BUMP
What I am waiting for is the dam to burst with reports about how journalists were bullied into not reporting on Obama’s eligibility issues. Further, how they were encouraged to belittle anyone who even questioned Obama’s legitimacy!
The fastest way to silence descent in the media is to attack the the character of the established members who have the power of the pen.
Start at the top, destroy their credibility and the message filters down to the rest of media...this will happen to you if you get out of line.
IMO.
I like the fact that he says a young journalist would have been more intimidated. He needs to say that again and again. I can take a lot of stuff from wherever but I know that my kids (well maybe not my kids, I raised them right) but their friends would simply take the easy route.
I like the fact that he says a young journalist would have been more intimidated. He needs to say that again and again. I can take a lot of stuff from wherever but I know that my kids (well maybe not my kids, I raised them right) but their friends would simply take the easy route.
[The fastest way to silence descent dissent (is what I believe you meant to type).
Thanks for the correction.
The press needs to decide if they’re going to be an arm of the democrat machine - or if they’re going to give honest information and facts to the American people.
They can’t do - or be - both.
Newsrooms run staff thin after years of short-term decision making by top editors. Calls that allowed editors to get 'easy' stories and do with fewer reporters. Stories handed to them by dem operatives. In the short run it worked - in the long run it destroyed the news industry. In the short term the press benefit from being bought whores...
In the long run their reputation's in the sewer and no one trust them. That 'no one' consist of readers and viewers who stop subscriptions and turn off the TV news.
The MSM must make a call - either they limp along losing credibility in dips and drabs - or they stand up and act like effing journalists and get their respect back... (and readers and viewers)
Newsrooms run staff thin after years of short-term decision making by top editors. Calls that allowed editors to get 'easy' stories and do with fewer reporters. Stories handed to them by dem operatives. In the short run it worked - in the long run it destroyed the news industry. In the short term the press benefited from being bought whores...
In the long run their reputation's in the sewer and no one trust them. That 'no one' consist of readers and viewers who stop subscriptions and turn off the TV news.
The MSM must make a call - either they limp along losing credibility in dips and drabs - or they stand up and act like effing journalists and get their respect back... (and readers and viewers)
I think most of the MSM made that choice years ago.
Our Media has a history of descent.
The lies on top of the previous stack of lies, on top of the previous stack of lies is beginning to tumple down.
Had all this happened about 200 years ago, there would not have been electronic media to store all the comments on, and Obama might have pulled it all off for another 4 years.
I see the Walls of Obama’s Washington tumbling down-—and very soon at that.
Like Humpty Dumpty, Obama will not be put back together again.
He will fall in a heap of his own making.
Good riddance.
Fouche who was Napoleon's chief of police was quoted as saying, "It is not enough to merely kill a man. You must destroy his reputation."
Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.
Piss off the press and other media and OBAMA will not be heard from again!
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