Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of news

For quite a while the media has been the main thing propping up the Obama administration. Now they are starting to emerge from a kind of battered-wife syndrome, and it pops up in particular issues. Without their main support apparatus in the media, without the "unofficial Obama campaign", public support for this administration is likely to continue to collapse.

In unprecedented criticism of the White House, 38 journalism groups have assailed the president's team for censoring media coverage, limiting access to top officials and overall “politically-driven suppression of the news.”

In a letter to President Obama, the 38, led by the Society of Professional Journalists, said efforts by government officials to stifle or block coverage has grown for years and reached a high-point under his administration despite Obama's 2008 campaign promise to provide transparency.

Worse, they said: As access for reporters has been cut off, the administration has opened the door to lobbyists, special interests and “people with money.”

And as a result, they wrote, Obama only has himself to blame for the current cynicism of his administration. “You need look no further than your own administration for a major source of that frustration – politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies. We call on you to take a stand to stop the spin and let the sunshine in,” wrote David Cuillier, president of SPJ.

The administration has dismissed similar charges from other journalism groups, notably the White House Correspondents’ Association, but the new letter sent Tuesday provided several examples of censorship and efforts to block reporter access.....

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As an example:

Potemkin Tour of Illegals Camp

As a journalist, I have been fortunate enough to visit and write from South Africa under apartheid, El Salvador during its Marxist insurgency, the Soviet Union under Communism, and Cuba during the endless reign of the immortal Fidel Castro. In each of these places, I was permitted — in fact, invited – to ask questions, challenge the thoughts of my hosts, and photograph what I saw....

Thus, I was stunned and disgusted by Obama’s below-U.S.S.R.-grade rules imposed on journalists invited to a “media tour” of the temporary shelter for illegal aliens at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. This visit, scheduled for 2:00 p.m. Central time tomorrow, is supposed to familiarize journalists with the locale at which the U.S. government is housing some 1,200 unaccompanied alien children who recently have broken into the United States. This is not a serious opportunity for journalists to learn about this place in depth and probe those detained there, as well as their hosts. Instead, this is a propaganda stunt worthy of North Korea.

Quoting directly from a July 7 invitation to this event, consider the handcuffs that Team Obama has forged for news people who bother to attend this sham field trip:

- No recording devices will be allowed
- No questions will be allowed during the tour
- No interacting with staff and children at the shelter
- We ask that your questions be provided via email or phone after the tour to Kenneth Wolfe [Deputy Director, Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Service
- HHS ACF [Administration for Children and Families] public affairs will provide answers to your follow up questions as quickly as possible
- We will provide photos of the facility after the tour
- There will be no on-site interviews by HHS staff before or after the tour, all inquiries go to Kenneth Wolfe

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Chalk up another win for the "most transparent administration in history".

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

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You just noticed?

1) President Obama’s War on Journalists

2) Obama’s war on journalism

3) An Assault From Obama's Escalating War on Journalism

4) Obama’s War on Journalists

5) Report: Obama brings chilling effect on journalism

6) Obama's Escalating War on Freedom of the Press

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

This is, and other issues revolving around it which includes the degradation of privacy and proper search/arrest protocol, are to me Obama and Co.'s most egregious crime. It is the one we will feel for the longest time after they leave.

Say what you want about the kind of job the reporters themselves were doing for the last couple decades, but as everything else slid into decline, the inviolability of the third estate largely remained. It was still one of the most robust in the world, and that offered us as good a hope as any to pull ourselves out of it.

We have lost that. Probably for a very long time to come.

It's the kind of crime that most people won't even notice until 50 years from now when it's too late to do anything about it without someone dying over it, and yet, however quiet of a crime it may be, it's also the most gangrenous, fatal wounding that we possibly could have allowed to happen.

It's just been unbelievable. And as someone in the writing world, I have been wanting to just cry in frustration at the distracted self-medication with Twitter and blogging that young writers are now using to try to avoid having to see the shadow of it creeping up on them. They have decided this isn't their fight. Who else's could it be possibly be? They're the young and energetic and the aspiring. This is absolutely their fight. It's our fight.

But gee whizz, isn't Obama's speech so good?

God. **** them all.

It's just another display of how good politicians have gotten at dividing us like this is some kind of football game. Support the team no matter what. And if you're scared of them, if they're coming after your freedom and the honor of your profession and even your life or those of your sources, support them even more in the hopes they'll let you be if you kiss their ass enough.

They're phenomenal at it. And Obama is one of the slickest of the current crop. I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not really.

If we fix this within my lifetime -- which it's entire possible that we won't -- then assuming I live long enough, I will be a very old woman with a completely blown larynx, for how much I have been screaming about this behind the scenes while everyone just ducks away and posts pictures of cats.

I just wanna cry. And no one wants to take on the fight. Not the real one, anyway. They want to squabble over stupid distraction issues, just like the politicians-as-football-coaches have trained them to do. But no one wants to fight the real fight.

We losing, and it hasn't even started yet. Just how they like it. And everyone just wandered home and said, "It doesn't matter anyway."

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

The sad truth is that the mainstream media has been a government lap dog, NOT a government watchdog, for quite a few years, running into the decades now, since the absence of men like Murrow and Cronkite.

That said, Obama has taken it to a new level, with the suspension of Habeas Corpus and his persecution of whistle blowers.

I nearly voted for him in the first election, but realized that with his support of FISA II he was just another traitor running for office.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

Henry David said:

The sad truth is that the mainstream media has been a government lap dog, NOT a government watchdog, for quite a few years, running into the decades now, since the absence of men like Murrow and Cronkite.

That said, Obama has taken it to a new level, with the suspension of Habeas Corpus and his persecution of whistle blowers.

I nearly voted for him in the first election, but realized that with his support of FISA II he was just another traitor running for office.

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I would say destruction of privacy/criminal rights and destruction of journalism are the only places where the parties seem to agree with each other. This has been coming for a long time. At any point before the last five or ten years, we could have cut it out at the root. Anyone who was paying attention could have seen all the pieces on the board, and just knocked it over with a huff of greater or lesser size, depending on how close you want to get to the cut-off.

Too late now. We'll either have to fight for it back someday -- whenever everyone else gets around to it I guess, and it won't be pleasant -- or we're never getting out of this slide.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

I do not see how anyone could support this idiot of a president anymore. people say bush was bad this guy has made him look way better than he was.
i hope the people of this country learned it's lesson from voting for left wing radicals and will pay more attention. somehow i doubt it and we will get hillary clinton in the next
go round.

well folks you wanted hope and change and fundimentally to change america this is what you get. i hope you people are happy. you were warned about what this guy would do and people refused to take note.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

ludin said:

I do not see how anyone could support this idiot of a president anymore. people say bush was bad this guy has made him look way better than he was.
i hope the people of this country learned it's lesson from voting for left wing radicals and will pay more attention. somehow i doubt it and we will get hillary clinton in the next
go round.

well folks you wanted hope and change and fundimentally to change america this is what you get. i hope you people are happy. you were warned about what this guy would do and people refused to take note.

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Bush WAS bad, and this guy IS worse. They both serve the same masters, and that is not the American people.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

Henry David said:

Bush WAS bad, and this guy IS worse. They both serve the same masters, and that is not the American people.

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Meh. I think if Bush had the pieces all lined up to the extent Obama did, he'd probably have done all the same stuff. He did, after all, set up some more pieces.

And of course, the corruption of the court has been a combined effort as well.

The system is completely corrupted. There's hardly an inch of it untarnished. And we keep playing football...

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

There you go. We have one of the planet's most corrupt governments. In some countries, government corruption relates to personal enrichment. In ours it relates primarily to political power and control. We haven't made it to the level of the former Soviet Union or East Germany but we are surely headed that way. Since the voters won't change it, my advice is take care of your own interests and stay as far away from government as you can.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

Henry David said:

The sad truth is that the mainstream media has been a government lap dog, NOT a government watchdog, for quite a few years, running into the decades now, since the absence of men like Murrow and Cronkite.

That said, Obama has taken it to a new level, with the suspension of Habeas Corpus and his persecution of whistle blowers.

I nearly voted for him in the first election, but realized that with his support of FISA II he was just another traitor running for office.

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This. Times 1000.

There was a time that journalists were expected to take government to task for its malfeasance. Sadly that day is long gone.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

Paxaeon said:

`
You just noticed?

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No. But I thought it worthy of comment. We are starting to see the nose-dive in the popular perception of this President, and I tie these two shifts together.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

Henry David said:

Bush WAS bad, and this guy IS worse. They both serve the same masters, and that is not the American people.

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Reminds me of my PJ O'Rourke:

When you looked at Republicans you saw the scum off the top of business. When you looked at Democrats you saw the scum off the top of politics. Personally, I prefer business. A businessman will steal from you directly instead of getting the IRS to do it for him. And when the Republicans ruin the environment, destroy the supply of affordable housing, and wreck the industrial infrastructure, at least they make a buck off of it. The Democrats just do these things for fun.

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Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

cpwill said:

For quite a while the media has been the main thing propping up the Obama administration. Now they are starting to emerge from a kind of battered-wife syndrome, and it pops up in particular issues. Without their main support apparatus in the media, without the "unofficial Obama campaign", public support for this administration is likely to continue to collapse.



As an example:



- No recording devices will be allowed
- No questions will be allowed during the tour
- No interacting with staff and children at the shelter
- We ask that your questions be provided via email or phone after the tour to Kenneth Wolfe [Deputy Director, Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Service
- HHS ACF [Administration for Children and Families] public affairs will provide answers to your follow up questions as quickly as possible
- We will provide photos of the facility after the tour
- There will be no on-site interviews by HHS staff before or after the tour, all inquiries go to Kenneth Wolfe
Chalk up another win for the "most transparent administration in history".

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I see no problem with any of those conditions. I thought Conservatives wanted a tough immigration stance not a dog and pony show to score points...

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

voyager1 said:

I see no problem with any of those conditions.

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Of course not. We must not allow those pesky journalists to effect the administrations control of the narrative. Obama will tell us what we need to know!

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

cpwill said:

Of course not. We must not allow those pesky journalists to effect the administrations control of the narrative. Obama will tell us what we need to know!

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Do reporters have a right to interview underage children without parental/guardian consent and/or while their court cases are pending?

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

tres borrachos said:

This. Times 1000.

There was a time that journalists were expected to take government to task for its malfeasance. Sadly that day is long gone.

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I hold out hope that you're wrong, and that journos are going to experience a refreshing burst of integrity and independence. The alternative, of course, is the slow eventual slide into manufactured news and memory holes.

Btw, kudos to SmokeandMirrors for that provocative bit about self-medicating by blogging and tweeting. That's really something to think about.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

You want to know how to tell someone is a hardcore partisan.
Anyone who defends the administrations actions with regards to this is so blindly following their party they are hopeless.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

There are no "journalists". They're dead. The ones that matter don't give a F about access to Obama.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

The press should have been all over the fake fainting Obama hero pathetic act while running for President, in which Hilary also did. Anyone pathetic enough to do that will do anything to lie and spin to the American public and should be in jail, not running the country. I really think we need to end the political party system killing the political machines of cronyism and go to term limits of one term for all politicians, with the strictest anti-corruption laws that are extremely well thought out to get all the loopholes as well as virtue mechanisms to assume self interest corruption and turn the greed for power to society's benefit.

Re: Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama's 'politically-driven suppression of

cpwill said:

Of course not. We must not allow those pesky journalists to effect the administrations control of the narrative. Obama will tell us what we need to know!

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Obama's just following precedent.

The Bush administration has perfected the art of tightly controlling information. And it has paid no price for its disciplined, on-message, my-way-or-the-highway approach. The press might want to get used to it--this may be the template for future presidencies.

http://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=3812


President Bush's Press Secretary announced today that he will not schedule any formal press conferences. Not now, not ever. All recent Presidents have regularly conducted press conferences as a way of simultaneously presenting their policies to the American people and allowing themselves to be questioned by a group of respected professional journalists. The fact that President Clinton, George W.'s father, and even the Alzheimeric Ronald Reagan conducted formal press conferences makes the younger President Bush's moratorium on such event a surprising and extreme departure from the minimum expectations of Presidential engagement with the American public.


http://irregulartimes.com/bushhide.html