Van goes under the bus.
Posted on 09/06/2009 2:15:03 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
If people relied on the mainstream media, especially print media, to keep up to date on the government, then they must have quite a shock this morning with the resignation of Van Jones. For instance, the New York Times makes its first mention of the Jones controversy this morning — by reporting his resignation:
"In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics, Van Jones resigned as the White House’s environmental jobs “czar” on Saturday.
Controversy over Mr. Jones’s past comments and affiliations has slowly escalated over several weeks, erupting on Friday with calls for his resignation."
Did the Times report it on Friday? On Saturday? No. Their first print report of any controversy at all over Van Jones came today, in reporting his resignation. The Times does a credible job laying out the more substantial accusations against Jones, but there is a problem here as well:
"Appointed as a special adviser for “green jobs” by President Obama, Mr. Jones did not go through the traditional vetting process for administration officials who must be confirmed by the Senate. So it was not until recently that some of Mr. Jones’s past actions received broad airing, including his derogatory statements about Republicans in February and his signature on a 2004 letter suggesting that former President George W. Bush might have knowingly allowed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to occur in order to use them as a “pre-text to war.”
Mr. Jones’s involvement in the 1990s with a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement prompted recent accusations by conservative critics that he associated with Communists. The group, according to a post-mortem written by some of its founders, was an anti-capitalist, antiwar organization committed to achieving “solidarity among all oppressed peoples” with “direct militant action.”
When did the 9/11 Truther connection come to light? Jim Hoft reported it Thursday, and it flew through the blogosphere. Even more Truther connections came out the next day. When did the New York Times — and to be fair, most other newspapers in the country — get around to reporting in print that a paranoid conspiracy theorist had a job as a White House czar? Today, after he quit.
Byron York gives us the round-up:
Coverage of the Jones controversy was a case study of some of the deep divisions within the media. Fox News’ Glenn Beck devoted program after program to Jones’ past, and a number of conservative blogs were responsible for finding some of Jones’ most inflammatory statements. Yet even as the controversy grew — and even after Jones himself apologized for some of his words — several of the nation’s top media outlets failed to report the story. As late as Friday, as the Jones matter began to boil over, it had not been reported at all in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC. Although the Post and CBS went on to report the Jones story on Saturday, the Times did not inform its readers about the Jones matter until after Jones resigned.
So much for speaking truth to power, eh?
This reminds me very much of the lack of coverage given to Eason Jordan’s accusations of deliberate journalist assassinations by the US military in early 2005. Jordan, a vice-president at CNN, made those accusations at a conference in Davos, Switzerland, where he thought Americans would not learn of them. After all, if CNN doesn’t report it, does it really happen? A reporter quoted Jordan and started a firestorm … in the blogosphere and on talk radio, which dug out more outrageous accusations and statements from Jordan. Newspapers couldn’t be bothered to cover it, however — not until Jordan’s resignation from CNN forced them to do so. In that case, the LA Times didn’t report it until almost 48 hours after Jordan resigned, and the New York Times only ran one wire-service report on its website prior to the resignation.
With Jordan, the assumption was that the media didn’t want to eat its own. That same assumption could be made about their reluctance to report on Van Jones. They have beclowned themselves a second time, and now have to answer for their silence in defense of a government official.
If the Democratic news media can’t report accurately on Van Jones, it should be out of business. Enough of their bias.
"In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration’s conservative critics, Van Jones resigned....
Speaking for just me.... I'm glad I did my part these last few weeks.
he heh he
There’s my new favorite word again:
“beclowned”
And so appropriate in this case.
What? NYT doesn't mention that Jones said the "C" word of himself?
I'm shocked!!
Is anyone in the MSM asking what is the vetting process at the obama White House? Is there a vetting process, or are they just pulling names out of a hat? How many passes on really bad decisions does obama get? Appointing tax cheats, foaming-at-the-mouth radical leftists... Either obama likes to have these kinds of people around, values their “judgement” and ideas (gag)...or he and his cohorts just have utter contempt for the positions and the people these “czars” will hurt with their idiotic ideas.
Van Jones should have remained part of 0bama’s inner circle.
Van Jones is a QUITTER
LOL!
44 Czars in DC my friend,
44 Czars in DC! Take one down pass him around,
43 Czars in DC!
Love it! It would be a great sign for March on D.C. on Saturday.
All the news that's fit to print. Most of the news that's fit to print. Some of the news that's fit to print. Ok. We print what we feel like.
Screw you. We print what we feel you freaking need to know!
And are they sitting on the hat while this occurs?
This latest Van Jones episode needs to be used against the media and someone needs to use their microphone, like PALIN, to take on the media directly and point out this advocacy journalism that is making a mockery and engaging in dangerous games that have undermined our country and our freedoms. The high up conservatives and Republicans need to make war on the press along with the Demonrats. It is imperative they do that. They need to become an issue because this propaganda and these clear examples, so numerous and so serious, are what keeps this radical group in power and threatens to turn to fascism. These people cannot be trusted with power and are proving it.
Obama czardom is the deliberate end-run around transparency. Van Jones did not just accidentally slip through the cracks of the Obama vetters. They knew what he espoused before they installed him.Take it from Obama’s own political godmother Michelle and Barack’s consigliere and Chicago powerbroker Valerie Jarrett took full credit at the nuttroots dKos blogger conference last month (August 15, 2009) for recruiting him and closely following his career:
JARRETT:. You guys know Van Jones? [Applause. Moderator injects: "This is his house apparently."]
JARRETT: Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he’s not that old, for as long as he’s been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House.
Jarrett, as I pointed out on Sean Hannity’s radio show five weeks ago, is the self-proclaimed keeper of Obama’s urban/racial “authenticity.” The Obamas don’t make a move without her, according to their closest friends and allies. Jarrett’s praise for Jones’s Oakland activism is explicit endorsement of his race-baiting career at Ella Baker, funded by the Soros-supported Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights/Ford Foundation/Rockefeller Foundation, and his Free Mumia agitation in the Bay Area schools — where he lambasted moderate civil rights leaders for objecting to politicizing the classrooms and where his pro-Mumia allies likened supporters of murdered police officer Daniel Faulkner to the KKK.
To their credit, FOX has been reporting all day that the silence has been deafening from print and TV media. They had somebody on from, I think Mediawatch or something. They said several times today that there were ZERO hits on Van Jones before last night’s resignation. None. Zero.
But then, they are preaching to the choir. I do wish someone that would get picked up by national news would make this an issue. Someone they would have to cover. I have no clue how that would happen.
You’d probably have to shake out a congressman or the secretary of one of the departments.
The State Media is now intolerably boring and completely irrelevant.
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.