Posted on 03/31/2015 6:28:29 AM PDT by grundle
... Singer’s experience is shared by virtually every journalist on the government beat, from the White House on down. They can recite tales with similar outlines: An agency spokesman — frequently a political appointee — rejects the reporter’s request for interviews, offers partial or nonresponsive replies, or delays responding at all until after the journalist’s deadline has passed.
Interview requests that are granted are closely monitored, reporters say, with a press “minder” sitting in. Some agencies require reporters to pose their questions by e-mail, a tactic that enables officials to carefully craft and vet their replies.
Tensions between reporters and public information officers — “hacks and flacks” in the vernacular — aren’t new, of course. Reporters have always wanted more information than government officials have been willing or able to give.
But journalists say the lid has grown tighter under the Obama administration, whose chief executive promised in 2009 to bring “an unprecedented level of openness” to the federal government.
The frustrations boiled over last summer in a letter to President Obama signed by 38 organizations representing journalists and press-freedom advocates. The letter decried “politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies” by spokesmen. “We consider these restrictions a form of censorship — an attempt to control what the public is allowed to see and hear,” the groups wrote.
They asked for “a clear directive” from Obama “telling federal employees they’re not only free to answer questions from reporters and the public, but actually encouraged to do so.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
shows what poor journalists they are - they are surprised that the federal gov has show totalitarian impulses after a hard-left socialist is elected.
Useful idiots finding out exactly how useful they were.
Slowly, but surely, they tighten their grip on power.
And not one of them was from ABCNNBCBSNPR - all of whom are either taking tax dollars to promote King Putt, or are ideological butt-buddies who do it for free.
Barak Obama, “ You all are surely mis-remembering.
What I said was the most translucient administration
evah!”
They helped these progressive administrations get away with withholding, now they’re getting it fed up their butts. Actions have consequences.
These are the same sycophant suckers who aided and abetted the corrupt bastards in this regime. They must be brain dead if they are just finding out that this regime controls and hides information.
Your observation is excellent, and shows that you are a lot smarter than those reporters.
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