WH - Be Forewarned � Free Ride is Over

WH - Be Forewarned � Free Ride is Over

Of late there has been a noticeable change in the mood of the journalists who cover the White House and Washington�s political theatre of the absurd. Reporters seem restless and agitated. At the daily White House press conferences, Bush spokesperson, Scott McClellan, has been fielding an ever increasing barrage of probing questions from a seemly more agitated and combative assemblage of frenetic constituents of the press corps.

The new and aggressive challenging of the White House by the Press is in sharp contrast with past practice. With the assent of the Bush Administration, was instituted a new strategy and treatment in dealing with the Press. No longer were they to be treated as partners and equals in the work to disseminate the news to the American people. The Administration started sanctioning reporter who wrote stories that portrayed the Administration is an unfavorable light.

Editors were called complaining about a reports new reports. Jobs were threatened and often �offenders� were put in �The Box� and frozen out of news stories or not given important news releases. The Press Corps normally accompanies the President on trips riding with him on Air Force One of the Chaser Plane. Reporters who had earned disfavor would be banned from riding on the trip or the wrong departure time would be given the transgressor ensuring a missed flight.

Helen Thomas, the oldest standing member � with the title �Dean of the White House Press Corps� � earned the ire of the White House moved her seat of tradition in the front of the room to the last seat in the Press Room. After she complained, she was banned for several weeks from even entering the Press Room to attend the daily briefing.

�The Bush administration, knowing all this, then played the press like a fiddle.

But has that era come to an end? A new Pew survey finds 55 percent of journalists in the national media believing that the press has not been critical enough of Mr. Bush, compared with only 8 percent who believe that it has been too critical. More important, journalists seem to be acting on that belief.�

An attempt at independence was once tried before. In July 2002, according to Dana Milbank of The Washington Post � who has tried, at great risk to his career, to offer a realistic picture of the Bush presidency � "the White House press corps showed its teeth" for the first time since 9/11. It didn't last: the administration beat the drums of war, and most of the press relapsed into docility.
But this time may be different. And if it is, Mr. Bush � who has always depended on that docility � may be in even more trouble than the latest polls suggest.

See NYT OP/Ed by Paul Krugman:

NY Times Link

*Mod edit: fixed link*

[Edited on 29-5-2004 by Banshee]

I sure hope the reporters take back their power of being the information source for the people.

Since and before 9/11 the press has been a simple tool for the goverment to report that what the US goverment wanted to be told to the people and nothing else.

As you say, reporters that wanted to report instead of press what they were dictated, were punished to some serious extents.

If the entire press corps works together, trows aside the chains and boundarys set up by the goverment, the media owners and their chain of command, they can break trough this. But whats important is that they work together and don't budge.

And trust me, if the press publishes all it can find, instead of just what it is said to print, the US is in for a massive SHOCK

Point me to the answer so I can do that trick........

Thanks for the fix. Those times http 'names' are like reaaaaaaaaaaal longggggggggggg

At this point it seems that Bush is a lame duck president. When newspapers start apologizing for falsely covering a case for war, as the NY Times has recently done, it signifies a serious paradigm shift. After a grossly inept economic policy, a bungled occupation, and nepotism to the point where you, at the least, disregard the American people, or at the worst, squander American lives, I think people are finally realizing the bellicose lies of which they have been fed.

Well stated, curme.

Your paucity of word with the utmost clarity is a rare gift. Well crafted.

But bit your tongue and knock wood. Don�t mis-underestmate him. Remember "The report of my death was an exaggeration."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910); New York Journal, June 1897

I'm guessing this is CYA for the reporting by Judith Miller.
Plug the name into Google, there are plenty of links regarding
her "quality" reporting. She was furthering her own career, IMO.

Originally posted by spacedoubt


I'm guessing this is CYA for the reporting by Judith Miller.
Plug the name into Google, there are plenty of links regarding
her "quality" reporting. She was furthering her own career, IMO.

I believe she had a book out at the time, something about anthrax, or rather, the bio-chemical threat in general.

Judith Miller is the Times expert of chem. /bio weapons and has written/reported extensively on the subject�.

"JUDITH MILLER is an author and Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent at The New York Times who writes about national security issues, with special emphasis on terrorism, the Middle East and weapons of mass destruction."
provost.syr.edu...

Miller also was the recipient of one of those anthrax laced letters.

Also see �Judith Miller. New York Times reporter Judith Miller has played a key role in promoting both US wars against Iraq�.� At:
www.disinfopedia.org...

She was "used" bigtime.

Her unnamed source was Amhed Chalibi. She then would confirm with the Office of the VP....

She was screwed, used and abused to the square.........

[Edited on 30-5-2004 by gmcnulty]

[Edited on 30-5-2004 by gmcnulty]

gmcnulty,

I think the "using" was in both directions.

Jmiller

NYT is pulling a CYA

It's no secret that the Press has long been Democratic in favor, in fact many have been Communists for quite some time.

I was once sleeping outside a Journalism class, I think Journalism Ethics or something (slept there during one of my Math Classes on the fourth floor of the Journalism College...great sleeping spot...not a good idea if you want to do good in Math :up

Anyways, I assume it was a Journalism ethics class because they were discussing "photography" and how it can be misleading. The Teacher was showing examples of the shark in San Francisco Bay leaping to eat the military diver from a black hawk helicopter (composited image) and so forth.

I wanted to bring up with him the example of the New York Times.

The New York Times posted a picture of a Palestinian getting beaten-up by an Israeli security guard on the Temple Mount.

Well it wasn't long before the New York Times was caught and exposed by the man in the picture's father who stated that the man in the picture was not a Palestinian but his son who was an American Jew. And that he and his friend were dragged out of a taxi and beaten by a mob of Palestinians and that the Israeli Guard was protecting them.

And indeed the larger "full shot" shows enough of the surroundings to show that the Israeli was not coming to beat up the other Jew, but to ward off someone not in the picture. It even turns out it was no where near the temple mount.

You can try and find this on Yahoo, I forget the name of the guy so I don't want to bother looking it up through my millions of "favorites"

But I just wanted to see that teacher's blood-vessels in his head explode when being confronted with such blatant liberal bias and anti-semitism that is so rampant in our media.

Bush should treat them like dirt and appeal to voters who don't rely on trash for their information. After all what does the News ever say about Bush's vs. Kerry's Economic Plans? It's always "Kerry is a war hero" (very suspect for a man who served 4 months) and "Bush ran away" (also very suspect for a man who could have been a desk jockey who just so happend to join the most vital aspect of the Air National Guard, units like his were always being randomly called up. It's more likely that Bush could not get into the regular Air Force like his dad was in the Naval Aviation, due to Bush's low scores and therefore joined the Guard or was told to by his dad, in hopes his unit would be called-up to go over. Just a thought.)

Eh well...the point is, the Press disturbes me.

FreeMason i agree with you. Some of the media outlets have been concentrating in trying to find new things to bash the Bush administration on. One thing is to have a free press and another is for the press to use this freedom to just present their own agenda.

News media like Al Jazeera, which is pro terrorist and have been found to be so not only by the US but other governments too like Spain, are completly bias to presenting their regimes as good and anything that has to do with the US or Israel as evil...

Could be. I'm not too sure either way. I have not read enough on the issue to have formed an opinion. So my best answer is( for me):

"Who knows?"

AS far as the Times outing themselves?

I have also heard some say,

"Shockingly unnecessary".........

"an obsessively compulsive nitpicking and hypercritical application of jounalistic ethics..."

What ever the case, (and here again, I've not followed the subject that closely. An am relying on comments of fair-minded folks I admire, respect and having a long track record of being on the mark).....

Some commentators and thinkers expect very good results because of the Times/Miller matter. It's going to cause lots of journalistic self-examination .... and at all of the major papers in the USA on ethics and the reporting requirements when using un-named sources.

That's the 'skinny'I know.

Originally posted by Muaddib
FreeMason i agree with you. Some of the media outlets have been concentrating in trying to find new things to bash the Bush administration on. One thing is to have a free press and another is for the press to use this freedom to just present their own agenda.

I think that we have to try to remember how the press treated Bill Clinton in his three final years in office - starting with the Monica Lewinsky scandal - to understand a bit more about what's going on. It's not as simple as the media being predominantly liberal - for example, MSNBC and CNN are seen as generally supportive of the war in Iraq.

But the other aspect is this - the media has been caught in the "O.J. syndrome", in that since cable networks, for one, need to run 24 hours of news and keep ratings going strong, they continuously need an O.J. story. After O.J. they had the Olympic Games bombing (1996), Princess Diana (1997), Monica Lewinsky (1998), the impeachment (1998-1999), September 11, and now Iraq.

And the current crisis within the Bush White House is just the type of story that'll keep the media going - investigations, endless testimonies of disgruntled generals or former govt workers which feed the debate instead of providing answers, thus ensuring that it'll keep on being a news story for a good while.

And when that happens, a president can either decide to go with the flow - as Clinton did, continuing his frequent press conferences and press briefings, thus getting somewhat more sympathy from the media - or clamp down, as the Bush administration has done, and guarantee that the media grow suspicious of it.

I am going to consolidate my reply because your responses are generally of the same argument and focus and form the basis for some of the most commonly used FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTS.
The false argument you use is properly called �Tu Quoque�. This is the famous "you too" fallacy. It occurs if you argue that an action is acceptable because your opponent has performed it.
As a matter of fact, this argument is at the heart of raging debate among Educational Professions in the Early Childhood Education field. The subject is being hotly debated in professional journals and other venues of academic thought and debate. This issue presents many problems for those in the field and present challenging problems in finding the most proper way of addressing the problem. For our purposes and understanding the problem often when least expected and takes the form:
She Hit Me! So, I Hit Her Back.
Or as many not in profession know, and often learned from one�s mother:
Two Wrongs Make A Right (Tu Quoque, You Too)
Tu Quoque: a charge of wrongdoing is answered by a rationalization that others have sinned, or might have sinned. For example, Bill borrows Jane's expensive pen, and later finds he hasn't returned it. He tells himself that it is okay to keep it, since she would have taken his.
War atrocities and terrorism are often defended in this way. Similarly, some people defend capital punishment on the grounds that the state is killing people who have killed.
It is still a commonly used but false assertion/justification. At ethics, it is related to, �The end justifies the means.�
Woven in (And I compliment you at you almost professional attempts at creating confusion) is the element of fallacy called: Red Herring, Changing the Subject, Distraction����
The one who offers this argument never address�s the subject in question but goes off talking about something else � at times slightly related � but still way off the mark. This strategy often employs argument designed to whip up the emotions and often ends in name calling.

Our friend, Freemason, striving for professional status, artfully strung together a plethora of falsehoods.(And not an easy thing to do in our �25 words or less� world today). Rather the entering a long discussion on error I�ll just list a few more notable examples:
�It's no secret that the Press has long been Democratic in favor, in fact many have been Communists for quite some time.�
� Ad Hominem Abusive.
� Begging the Question
� Circumstantial Ad Hominem
� Composition
� False assertion presented as fact
� Guilt By Association
� Poisoning the Well
And all done in one sentence. Think of that!
I presented well know facts in how the Bush Administration relates to the Press; and the methods they use to �get their message � the message they want � out in the news; the lengths they will go to in achieving that end; and the chilling effects its had on reporters.
It was not an argument. It was a statement of fact. I hope my presentation was perceived as being balance, factual, and free from being judgmental, because that�s how it was intended.
If I in error because of errors in style, word selection or mistake did otherwise: I apologize. IT was unintentional. If, for some reason, reader mistook my intended meaning: I apologize. IT was unintended.
I offered the material for your consideration and contemplation. What you think of it or judge it to mean is for you to decide.

I have read your post to Muaddib which struck a cord of interest in me. You speak of some very important issue/developments/changes which we must think of /and confront concerning the media/news cycle/news focus. Many of these elements/changes have had a dramatic of what we know of and/or see the world.

Today�s news for the most part I would suggest for your consideration is what I call �NEWSERTAINMENT�. It is a blend of current events which will be popular and attract an audience. Although a new and popularly practiced format, �newsertainment� has not become the excusive form practiced in all media outlets but it has become pervasive enough to cause concern.

Newsertainment�s (or NE) focus is not on being an outlet of news, which is fair and balanced, and designed to inform with a neutral presentation allowing the public form an opinion free of bias. (Not that the public may form a bias opinion; bit the presentation was free from bias and/or propaganda in the first place.) NE�s focus on ratings and the corporate bottom line; everything else is secondary.

So we get Michael Jackson competing for time/space/attention with our boys dying in Iraq. Got the picture? Cable news is the venue where one can find this practiced most often. Excluding CNBC�s financial reporting, most all the rest to a greater or lesser degree, �suck� as a source of meaningful, factual information. There are a few exceptions: Lou Dobbs is an excellent example of the 6 o�clock news format show; Matthews and Meet the Press�s Tim Russert excel ; and on AM talk radio IMUS in Morning is one of the best interviewers of figures of current events.

For the mot part the rest of the field sucks - Screaming heads, biased news anchors presenting opinion as news; cherry pick of facts and figures; issues and stories selected or presented more to fire the emotions then to inform; and selection of general �crap� events which don�t deserve the light of day. Even CNN � once a respected source of meaningful news � has lowered its once high standards. AND not to forget the Fox Network � who I blame as the source of the accelerated decline into the toilet of cable news � has rightly been branded with the substitute name of FAUX News takes the cake for being the tops at being the best purveyor of trash. IMHO

Yes, Otts you have raised an important issue����

But all that aside, I must take exception with some of your observations:

The difference between Clinton � Bush in relation to their poll numbers I would suggest was not a product of news coverage per se, but I would suggest something else entirely.

It was based on the fact the public never saw getting a BJ in the Oval Office as an impeachable offense. (Please don�t give me the bull ducky about �lies�, perjury, and the rule of law crap � folks never bought that. They cut Bill a break because you�re supposed to lie in that situation and for that matter �best guess-1/2 of America has done so if the stats are correct. So Bill has a built in �I�ve been there.� sympathy factor)

The reason Bill�s numbers did a slow but stead climb was because of you folk�s who ravaged to �poor man�. You could have patience to allow the process to work its way thru��..had you kept your traps shut you we would have had another short term President like Ford name Gore

But noooooooooooooooooooooooo

You folks raved and roared well over the top���. So much so that you offended most folk; and you forgot about American values. Yup! You did!

First off, us �just plain folk� have a quirk about �fair play�. You can be guilty as sin but before we hang your sorry ass we�ll make darn sure you get your fair trial, first. Bill was getting the bum�s rush and we took exception to that � we could wait to see the process thru. What the rush?

Second, you folks went way over the top. You�ll all made sure we heard the term BJ, jerk off etc. at least 3x a day. That�s not good for the kids to be hearing and we resented it;

But thirdly and most importantly, we love a good fight and we love to root for the underdog. Just think of all the �feel good� movies we make popular. In the last 10 minutes of the movie the hero who has borne the �pains of hell� wins with the bad guys getting their just due. We leave the movie with tears in our eyes and a smile on our face � feeling �truth and justice has triumphed�, at least some where.

WE were also -during the 8 years you�ll beat up on the boy � had a suspicion that there was double standard��..two sets of rules lurking around some where in the whole mess called the �Clinton Thingy�.

And you all proved that as fact with your boyGeorge. Say it ain�t the case and its not true all you want. No matter! We all know. And that�s why George�s numbers are going south. It�s not the news media. My g-d they can�t even record all his screw up because there�s so many. And we�re not being unfair and treating him poorly because he can�t form a proper English sentence; nor do we think poorly of him cause he slaps his wife�s a$$ and picks his nose in public. NO sir.

WE just don�t like the �blue sky BS� and being, shall we say, �misled�; whole lot of that goin� on. Nope. Don�t like it at all.

And we can wait till November to do what we must. We�re going to send George back to Crawford. That�s a safe place for him cause he�ll be in the middle of no-where. Crawford ain�t the end of the world��.but on a clear day - from the rise - you can see it from there.

And please don�t tell me he a popular guy because 80% of folks would like to have him PLEASE.

That�s just like Crawford: It�s a safe place where you can keep an eye on him so he does no harm.

I agree that the media has and is a tool for the Goverment to lead the American Sheeple around by the nose.
I my self only woke up about 5 years ago.
I get 99% of my news from the web now, even still this info needs to be taken in with caution.
Love this site.
Take care.

Who said that? That now you're agreeing with!

I'm glad you woke up but maybe there's more to the story?

Hit and Run is like an Alice in Wonderland gotta go got no time.......... no judgment intended....just an observation.

If anything, I'd say the "press" is giving one last ghast at life trying to make us believe that what they say actually matters. Most people see right through thier BS. Even Chris Mathews and the other ranters are sweating it.

Its kinda like the Big 3 networks of way back when. They had a stranglehold on us, we watched whatever crap they had on. Heck, how long was Dallas and Full House on?

There's just too many outlets now, Jennings, Koppel, and all those other talking head has-beens are over. Thier agendas aren't selling and they are running scared.

Now we have sources that are outside the mainstream media, we are NOT idiots like most media bigwigsl want us to be, we know when they are feeding us a line, most people (I hope) know how to read a newstory.

Its very similar when some 120 year old movie critic reviews a movie and gives it 0.5 stars. Yeah, right, I'm gonna believe that guy? Just because he like movies about gay cowboys, and there weren't any in it, it instantly is a bad movie. sheesh. Watch it and find out for yourself. And heres a hint, if MTV is involved and you are over 17, its gonna suck.

On the other hand, with all these other news outlets, you don't know what to believe. Heck I'm making this whole thing up as I go. Just read between the lines of the newstories, when they say "iraqi prisinor abuse". Which btw, they are detainees, not prisonors, big difference. And its not friggin abuse, it may have been unappropriote, but remember in that same prison they also used to cut off peoples hands, shock em, poke out eyes and all that. now THAT is abuse. Like to see half the coverage of what used to happen there than a naked dogpile of detainees.

btw- the best news comes from BBC, and stay very very far away from Chinese news, they have such a twisted agenda, you can't even read between the lines, the stories themselves contridict themselves. I mean come on, I find it hard to believe that those detainees were forced to have sex with each other. Wonder how far on the list China is after this middle east thing. Be a heckuva war, but they got lots of oil.. hmmmm

Originally posted by chefgroovy
If anything, I'd say the "press" is giving one last ghast at life trying to make us believe that what they say actually matters.

Your opening premise is at odds with the points you make���In any event I want to agree with the importance of the points you make:

1. That of being a discerning reader who critically examines the news from multiple sources exercising a high degree of critical thinking g skills.
2. You make not of the fact that at no other time in history have we had the ability to examine information from all over the world and have it within the reach of our fingertips without ever leaving home.
3. No longer do we have to depend upon a limited number of news sources and now have the ability to test even the ones we may trust to see if they are telling us the truth.

You make some very important points we all should keep in mind.