Right on cue, the White House press awakens from its Bush slumber
Pulling a collective Rip Van Winkle, the White House press corps has awakened from its extended nap just in time to aggressively press the new Democratic administration, just as it dogged the last Democratic president during his first days in office back in the 1990s. Conveniently skipped over during the press corps' extended bout of shut-eye? The Bush years, of course.
Suddenly revved up and vowing to keep a hawk-like watch on the Obama administration ("I want to hold these guys accountable for what they say and do") and all of a sudden obsessed with trivia, while glomming onto nitpicking, gotcha-style critiques, Beltway reporters have tossed aside the blanket of calm that had descended on them during the previous administration, a blanket of calm that defined their Bush coverage.
Can't say I'm surprised about the sudden change in behavior, though. Taking the long view, I recently went back and contrasted how the press covered the first days and weeks of Clinton's first term in 1993 with its coverage of Bush's arrival in 2001. The difference in tone and substance was startling. (Think bare-knuckled vs. cottony soft.)
One explanation at the time of the Bush lovefest was that reporters and pundits were just so burnt out by the Clinton scandal years that they needed some downtime. They needed to relax; it was human nature. Conversely, the opposite now seems to be true: Because the press dozed for so long -- because it sleepwalked through the Bush years -- it just had to spring back to life with the new administration. It's human nature.
When contrasting the early Clinton and Bush coverage, I noted it would be deeply suspicious if, in 2009, the press managed to turn up the emotional temperature just in time to cover another Democratic administration. But wouldn't you know it, the press corps' alarm went off right on time for Obama's arrival last week, with the Beltway media taking down off the shelf the dusty set of contentious, in-your-face rules of engagement they practiced during the Clinton years and putting into safe storage the docile, somnambulant guidelines from the Bush era. In other words, one set of rules for Clinton and Obama, another for Bush. One standard for the Democrats; a separate, safer one, for the Republican.
"I don't think there is a honeymoon" for Obama, Jon Banner, the executive producer of ABC's World News, announced last week. "The accountability starts immediately." See, accountability suddenly reigns supreme. Just like right after Clinton was sworn in. But Bush in 2001? Not so much.
For folks who, understandably, weren't paying attention 16 years ago or who haven't read up on their White House media history, it's hard to appreciate just how uncanny the similarities are between how the suddenly hyperactive, conflict-driven press corps (baited by the right to prove their independence) is dealing with Obama's first days and how the hyperactive press dealt with Clinton's opening days, as journalists then also seemed determined to prove their un-liberalness.
The early Clinton and Obama scripts are at times interchangeable (i.e. baseless, negative stories like the cost of Obama's inauguration and the cost of Bill Clinton's haircut). The only part that doesn't fit in with the rest of the mosaic is how the press lovingly treated the Republican in 2001 during his arrival in town.
The media's abrupt transformation last week in terms of greeting the new president -- a transformation that unfolded with great pride and even apparent glee among reporters -- was showcased during the new administration's first White House press briefing, where many reporters, previously comatose during the news-free Bush-era briefings, rose up in anger and demanded answers during a contentious session.
"Game On! Obama's Clash With The White House Press Corps" announced The Daily Beast. And under the headline, "Obama press aide gets bashed in debut," The Washington Times' Joseph Curl reported:
Although President Obama swept into office pledging transparency and a new air of openness, the press hammered spokesman Robert Gibbs for nearly an hour over a slate of perceived secretive slights that have piled up quickly for the new administration. It wasn't pretty.
[...]
And so it went at the first official White House briefing of the new Obama administration -- a fiery back and forth dispelling the notion that journalists would go easy on the guy that many reports show it went easy on during the marathon primary and general election campaigns.
Halfway through the interrogation, a reporter asked succinctly: "Is the honeymoon over already?"
Curl also reported there was yelling and shouting from journalists inside the White House press room that day. (One "spat.") Now, if you're having trouble recalling all the times the same press corps "hammered" Bush White House spokesman Ari Fleischer for nearly an hour -- yelled, shouted, and spat questions at him -- back in January 2001, don't worry, your memory isn't going bad. It's just that those contentious hardball sessions never actually happened.
In fact, the media's lullaby treatment of Bush at the outset of 2001 became so pronounced that even some members of the Beltway press corps acknowledged the unfolding phenomenon and how it so obviously contrasted with the high-octane coverage the outgoing Democratic administration had been bombarded with. "The truth is, this new president [Bush] has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton," Politico's John Harris, then with The Washington Post, wrote during Bush's first months in office. (Harris went on to cheer, "[G]ood for Washington in giving a new president a break at the start.")
The other Clinton/Obama connection is how the press detests the way new Democratic White Houses treat the media. Of course, the irony is thick, considering the utter contempt the Bush White House displayed toward the press. The way former chief of staff Andrew Card famously dismissed the press as just another D.C. special interest group desperately seeking access, the way aides quickly formed habits of not returning reporters' calls for weeks and months, and the way the Bush White House waved in a former male prostitute using an alias and without any valid journalistic credentials to toss softball questions during briefings. That's how Republicans brushed back the press. But it's the Democrats whom reporters lash out at. It's the Democrats whom reporters denounce with righteous indignation within days of the new administration's taking office.
Back at the outset of 1993, journalists complained that the new Clinton communications team limited their access by closing off portions of the White House to reporters, that aides didn't sufficiently schmooze journalists, and that the new president did not have enough formal press conferences. (And don't even ask what reporters did when their pals in the White House travel office got fired.) "They're dissing us," Los Angeles Times California editor David Lauter, then-White House reporter, complained in April 1993.
Well, fast-forward to last week, and it's déjà vu all over again. Here's how Politico cataloged the media's petty laundry list of grievances that sparked the press "frustration":
There have been a handful of rocky moments so far. Some press staffers found their name cards misspelled on Wednesday and phone lines weren't properly hooked up. Reporters trying to reach the press staff got emails bounced back.
[...]
And in the hours before Gibbs' briefing, the northwest gate of the White House started running out of temporary passes.
No wonder NBC's Chuck Todd compared the White House press room to Gitmo -- reporters' names were misspelled!
It was telling that in its piece about Obama's press woes, Politico noted how the Clinton administration had also run into trouble with the press over issues of access. Noticeably absent from the Politico article was any mention of how the Bush administration dramatically limited media access, regularly cordoned off information from the press, and warned reporters that edgy questions posed at the daily sessions were "noted in the building." That's all been tossed down the memory hole. It's only new Democratic presidents who are asked to play nice with the press and get badgered when they do not.
But back to the showdown at the White House briefing last week: CNN's Ed Henry, while appearing on The Situation Room, stressed to host Wolf Blitzer that he didn't think the new White House press secretary had answered his query that day about Obama's pick to become deputy defense secretary. Think about that premise for a moment (i.e. a White House press secretary artfully dodges a reporter's question) while recalling what the White House press briefings were like for reporters under Bush. Dan Froomkin at washingtonpost.com did his best to capture the vacuous nature of those exercises:
The spin, the secrets, the non-answers and the unprecedented lack of access are an insult not only to journalists, but to the public that depends on us to fully inform them about what's really going on in the White House.
Added blogger and J-school professor Jay Rosen:
The point here was to underline how pointless it was even to ask questions of the Bush White House. And reporters got that point, though they missed the larger picture I am describing. Many times they wondered what they were doing there.
And TNR's Jonathan Chait:
Much of the time [Ari] Fleischer does not engage with the logic of a question at all. He simply denies its premises -- or refuses to answer it on the grounds that it conflicts with a Byzantine set of rules governing what questions he deems appropriate. Fleischer has broken new ground in the dark art of flackdom: Rather than respond tendentiously to questions, he negates them altogether.
But suddenly for Henry, when a Democrat's in power, it's news when a White House press person doesn't answer a reporter's question during a daily briefing. After eight years of having a succession of Bush flacks who, almost with robotic precision, refused to answer weeks, months, and years' worth of daily briefing questions from reporters -- to the point where journalists stopped showing up at the daily briefings or even trying to draw out useful information from the uncooperative White House press operation -- against that backdrop, the CNN correspondent thought it was newsworthy that his question wasn't answered by the new Democratic White House spokesman.
In other words, a routine, everyday press occurrence under Bush (a reporter gets a non-answer) suddenly transformed itself into a news event under Obama.
Do reporters deserve to get straight answers at the White House? Yes. Was Henry's query a legitimate one? Absolutely. But when the non-answers came from Bush spokesmen and women, the working press corps seemed to shrug it off. On Obama's first day, though, an unsatisfactory response was suddenly worthy of discussion on cable television. Why? From the press' perspective, Democratic administrations are supposed to answer all questions. They're supposed to grant carte blanche access to the press. Republicans could do whatever they wanted to the daily briefing and defang the process to the point of irrelevancy. But Democrats? Sorry, a different set of rules apply.
That double standard explained why there was so much media chatter last week after Obama, while making a good-natured social visit to the White House press workspace, waved off a substantive question about a high-level appointment of his. Pressed again by Politico's Jonathan Martin, Obama responded good-naturedly, "We will be having a press conference, at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys. That's all I was trying to do." ("A testy exchange," gasped Politico.)
But did the press ever needle Bush with uncomfortable questions when he made social calls? Please note that in August 2006, when Bush made a rare unannounced visit to the White House press room -- and this was years after Bush had broadcast his open contempt for the press -- there were no tough questions. As Froomkin reported at the time:
So there was something entirely appropriate about Bush stopping by the briefing room yesterday not to answer (or even be asked) a single substantive question -- but to insult pretty much everyone in spitting distance.
Bush mocked members of the media to their face that day by tossing out several insults, and none of them asked a substantive question. Obama was gracious with reporters and was rewarded with a gotcha moment, which the press corps then obsessed over.
More proof that the Rip Van Winkle press corps has been stirred from its slumber.
Will the Obama administration make the kind of organized threats to media companies that Rove and BushieCo made? Doubtful. The Obama administration wants more transparency, more towards the way government access should be to the people.
Without threats or the dismissive nature toward the media. This "access" will be pounded into the skulls of the press coverage as "weak" by the Rove Rangers. So the press will respond to the perceived weakness by suddenly becoming "strong."
They reward the bad behavior of BushieCo by cowering and punish the Obama Admin by throwing a snit. What a country.
I was lucky enough to see a meeting of the minds/ wingnut pamphlet plug appearance involving Sean Hannity and Bernard Goldberg.Goldberg referred to the press as Obama's "base", and they both giggled at the joke, a joke that could only possibly be funny in the Fox alternate reality where Obama's opponent did not directly address members of the press as his base.
I'm wondering MMfA....
I still love what you guys do... but
I just spent the last 6 minutes typing out a post for this thread... I was very careful not to use obvious swear words (i.e; profanity)... yet, it bounced back telling me to refrain from using profanity... the harshest word I had typed was 'he11' <--- I used 1's instead of l's
When I used the back button, all I typed was lost...
So what exactly is considered 'profanity' by you guys??
I think the Cyber Nanny just goes off on a tangent sometimes. Earlier today I had the same problem, and I finally deduced that I had used the word "hard" right next to the word "on" in a sentence. Apparently that is considered "profane" by the filter.
Go figure.
I got here late, as to the censorship and profanity, I was bounced for using the word pi$$ed. See if this makes it. I also lost ALL that I typed. I'm not pi$$ed, just curious. I didn't get a response to my question when I e-mailed them, just an auto reply. I don't wish to break the rules, I just want to know what they are.
It's trial and error as far as language goes. If yoo feel good about your post but think you may have crossed the MMFA censors, I suggest you copy your post before you click the 'post' icon. From there you can edit your words until it passes.
Things are different now --
The press holds the administration accountable for its actions, and the administration's press secretary is not a propaganda minister who lies and obfuscates all day long.
I'm pretty sure this is how it's supposed to work. So why are you complaining?
This is a first MMFA whining about treatment from the press. So once again asking Democrat’s hard questions is not acceptable. The Bush Administration had a very aggressive pres corp. As H. Clinton once said “ we are Americans and we have the right to question our government”.
Very aggressive? Oh, ABSOLUTELY! They really held their feet to the fire regarding Iraq, torture and partisan hiring, didn't they? Any other brilliant examples of the media questioning Bush?
No but I bet the left has ignored the fact that Obama went for a nighttime stroll tothe press corps area of the whitehouse and was amazed they wanted to ask him questions when all HE wanted to do was chit-chat. Then he gets petulent when they persist in asking him questions. Yeah.. right.. transparent my backside.. lol... He should have learned his lesson about roaming into someone else's turf regarding hard questions after the "messiah" wandered up Joe the plumber's driveway.
MMFS
Still pimping that Joe the F***ing Plumber fairy tale, huh?
I know that heroes are scarce in Troglodyte World, but, Joe the F***ing Plumber? He's a jerk and a phony.
Wow..we're only 8 days in to the Obama Utopia and his SUPPORTERS are going off the deep end. This is going to be fun!
What exactly is the 'fairy tale' of Joe the Plumber?
Once upon a time there lived a brave man named charles, but he called himself Joe. Charles wasn't very bright, but he was very outspoken. He claimed to be in the process of purchasing the plumbing co. he worked for, but he had neither the requisite licenses or financial and intellectual capabilities for said purchase. So Joe/Charles then decided to ride away in the sunset on the Maverick express. Unfortunately they did not live happily ever after.
The End.
Who? Where?
Actually this article is about the glaring double standards of White House Press Corps. It isn't about Obama supporters at all.
It must be killing you to see Obama present such confidence, authority and intelligence on a daily basis. Gee, if y'all didn't follow up boy george with insane/failin maybe it would be a republican in the white house. Not very likely, but at least possible...
Someone else's turf? Give me a break. What? Are you one of those Alaskan secessionists? This is America, Ms.
and last week when Obama went into the press room and got what mmfa says is a gotcha question? absurd. but that is the way mmfa sees it, so it's no wonder they whine about the press' treatment of Obama, it's gotcha. Democrats who aren't scripted and in front of a microphone preening get gotcha questions. too bad.
"Democrats who aren't scripted and in front of a microphone preening get gotcha questions."
Good lord, that is one serious case of projection you got there. The toughest question Bush got was whether he needed to capture/kill Saddam for Iraq to be a success...
If only Republicans got gotcha questions, they wouldn't have to resort to being greedy and incompetent to lose elections.
Nobody ever said that the press couldn't ask hard questions. What the article was doing here, was comparing the first days of Bush versus the first days of Obama, which are wildly different.
Nobody said don't hold Obama accountable. Nobody said don't ask hard questions. What is being written about here, is how there are 2 different standards apparently for democrats and republicans.
That said, President Bush's first formal press conference in office must be seen as an utter failure in achieving the president's No. 1 goal: appearing calm and in command. http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/02/23/press_conference/
Yes, Salon was so easy on the Bush Administration. This took about 5 seconds to find.
Was Salon considered part of the Press Corps in 2001?
no crud... Salon is what it is- a good source for news and commentary, but surely not the press corps...
Define "aggressive."
Say what? markbfoot how many fingers am I holding up? Wrong, four. So you haven't been paying attention. The question is where have you been for the last eight years? You're not an al Qaeda comedian are you? Because I hear they can be funny too. But wait, you're not funny you're kind of confused.
Hold on, you're a bushie aren't you? I hear you guys are kind of slow on the up take so I'll try to explain this to you.
Bush had a cake walk with the press. Especially after the Rovenator started making phone calls to the media execs. I think they sounded something like, 'Have you ever heard of rendition?' Of course Faux Entertainment was on board from the beginning since Rupert was a loyal Reich officer.
Let me know if this helped.
Let's see... did Boehlert complain that asking a Democrat a hard question is not acceptable, or did he complain that the Bush Administration didn't have a very aggressive press corps?
That's what I thought.
I love the good cop/bad cop...or as the Army Field Manual calls it "Mutt & Jeff" writings of Boehlert & Foser.
Foser...liberal but even-handed. Boehlert...liberal with a whine.
Pres.Obama said it quite well about his performance, "I want you to hold your govt. accountable. I want you to hold me accountable."
I'll go this far in agreeing with Boehlert about the media...they're mostly a bunch of petty clowns that gives me little hope of objective journalism. Want proof? Take a gander at the collection of misfits, slouching in their seats at any presidential news conference.
Take a gander at the collection of misfits, slouching in their seats at any presidential news conference.
Those were Bush staffers assigned to be seat fillers. ;>)
Those louts. I guess they missed the memo from Pres.Obama..."I won".
Because they were en route to Hollywood preparing to work the Oscar awards ceremony as seat fillers they missed that. Exxon Mobil stopped hiring so they were all pressed for employment.
To add to this thought...
Journalism schools have become a joke on most College campuses. They are looked at as the new "basket weaving" for the new age. Little effort going in and obviously little coming out. There is little focus on "new" media as most professors are still in the old mold of newspaper/newsmagazine rise to editor.
When is the last time you attended a J-school?
Never. It's not my bag babe. ;)
I do have three young cousins that have recently graduated from college and this topic did come up when they were still in school.
Relax, it's just my opinion based on conversations I had with them. Geez...
But did any of them go to Journalism School? Or did they just, like I did, take Journalism 101 for an easy credit?
Tbone:
Do you have the names and SS #s of those cousins?
The ninnies who patrol this site need to document that they were actually in college before you are allowed to post your above comments/opinions.
The real ninnies are those who...
Forget it, too easy.
Save it, wes. There's hardly another poster here who whines more about MMFA's work than you.
Do you really think you have any credibility?
Yours is the Party of Palin who can't stop whining about the press long after they have lost interest in her. Yours is the Party of the whiny, waterworks crybabies of Voinovich and Boehner.
So just save it, hyp.
Typical non-response. Wimp.
Do you think that not responding will make the truth disappear?
You're a terrible conservative if you think not responding to an attack diminishes the attack. Hell. You could be a Kerry Democrat with that attitude.
Of course, part of the Bush Legacy Revisionist History Project will be to claim that the Press was really mean to him, and our resident GOP apologists will go right along with it.
The main difference I see is not so much the press conferences with Obama, but how the overpaid Talking Heads are dissecting every appointment and proposal.
Where were they in 2003?
Where were they when it was revealed that the Pentagon sent a cadre of Generals out to sell the Iraq War to the press? That story got less than a 24 hour news cycle.
Where were they on the Downing Street Memo? Does anybody even remember that story? Caroline Kennedy's failed bid for the Senate seat got more analysis than the Downing Street Memo.
I guess, if "everything changed after 9/11", it's now safe to say that everything has changed back, at least in how we are supposed to treat the Commander in Chief.
Just wait and see what happens when Obama starts making decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan. Rest assured that it will no longer be considered "un-American" to criticize the President while we have troops in harms way. In fact, it will suddenly become our "patriotic duty".
Look at what they've been saying about him and Gitmo.
I thought that it was un-patriotic to go against the President during a time of war? (sarcasm off).
Yeah, really?
My journalism school talked a lot, and I mean A LOT, about new media and the future of journalism, and most of it came from those stodgy old professors you claim are stuck in rewind. Journalism schools aren't the death of journalism, TV talking heads are the death of journalism. Just look at how many times they all cited the false CBO report as if it were something tangible, or how Tweety said the 200 mil for contraceptives "felt a little like China."
Sorry, supposed to be in reply to TBone...G-d I hate the new format.
I saw that interview with Matthews; he just couldn't let go of that Family Planning thing, could he?
I'd like to be around to see the judgement of history on what caused the demise of American Journalism. As you stated, the overpaid talking heads are certainly part of it. Are any of them real journalists any more, or just prettier versions of Larry King?
I think Jon Stewart does a better job of analysis than most of the "serious" journalists on cable TV.
"I'd like to be around to see the judgement of history on what caused the demise of American Journalism."
My guess would be the corporate ownership of media and the idea that the news is a business and that quality journalism is determined by ratings.
That might be the root of it right there.
Maybe after the first 100 days Obama should just go on a very long vacation to some mysterious "ranch" and roll up his sleeves and clear some brush, go fishing, or ride his bike. Worked for W.
Unlike W, Obama is being a real president. But I think he is going to need a vacation after working to clean up W's mess.
Which reminds me...
Remember all of that talk about how Obama wouldn't be ready to roll on day 1? Seems as though he hit the ground running even before day 1.
There is actually an angle I am surprised no one has hit upon. Call it the test of fire. Bring on the hard questions, bring on the tough subjects, hold me accountable and when I succeed despite it all write it the way it happened.
The right would never shut up if they somehow thought Obama was failing and the press wasn't paying attention. So let them ask away and write their petty little pieces but in the end actions and results will speak louder than all the whiners and those that whine about whiners.
A study of media coverage at the time revealed that negative comments on the President QUADRUPLED when Bill Clinton took office. No wonder our democracy is failing.
I'm fine with negative comments.
As long as there is something to back them up. In Clinton's case, sometimes the negative was justified. Most of the time, eh, not so much...
Like I've said a hundred times, if the Press OR Congress had devoted half as much time to the WMD intelligence claims as they did hunting down Monica's Blue dress, we probably wouldn't be in Iraq right now, and thousands of people might not be DEAD.
"The Bush Administration had a very aggressive pres corp."
Yeah, every time he went to Europe...
This was overt when David Gergory laid into Rahm Emanuel on "Meet the Press" the Sunday BEFORE Obama's Inauguration. The man wasn't even in office yet. And, though Gregory was one of the more "aggressive" White House reporters during the Bush years, the interview felt more like an interrogation, and seemed wholly like the press corps was trying to make up for lost time (read: lazy, indifferent softball "reporting") during the last eight years. As you point out, that sudden "spirit" of inquisitive, "tough" reporting has quickly blossomed and taken fruit.
In defense of at least one member of the White House Press corps, Helen Thomas was practically frozen out after she asked President Numbnuts Bush a tough question. Maybe that had a chilling effect on the rest of them?
After all, you wouldn't expect them to put journalistic integrity ahead of their cushy jobs, would you?
Profit replaces accuracy and truth as primary goal in MSM
This is called the Taco Bell analogy. Taco Bell is division of PepsiCo, a giant multi-national corporation that also owns, Frito-Lay, Pizza Hut and other fine products. So, in the Taco-Bell management structure, one of the upper managers, let’s say the executive VP for the SW USA (they often have very impressive titles, the better to bandy about at reunions and weddings and so forth) comes up with an idea to eak out a little more profit by some improvement to the wholesale ordering system. This happens all the time as computers allow ever more automation. In fact, this ever increasing productivity is a good thing; it is a major driver of economic growth. Ok, so at the next management retreat in Scottsdale, this VP gets some nice award like a new BMW and few 100 k of stock options. No problem. Take note though, that the quality of the product was not improved. The tacos and chulpas at taco bell are still the same. However, other VP’s, say the Mid West VP for Frito-Lay is now under pressure to find some way to increase his division’s bottom line.
Now, take this whole scenario to a news gathering organization that is part of a mass media conglomerate. The VP of game shows is able to increase his profitability by buying a hit game show from Britain that features lot’s of extraordinarily attractive women, each with a suitcase that maybe has a million dollars in it. I guess it is debatable whether this is an improvement in the quality of game show programming. Personally, the only new game show that intrigued me was who wants to be a millionaire because it had Regis and there was lot’s of strategy as to when to use the various help options. Regardless, the game show VP is showered with praise, adulation and money. The point is that the VP of games did not improve the quality of any existing program, he just had the good luck to buy the US rights to a program that was doing well in another market.
But, the VP of the news division says to himself, “Hmm, I too would like an all expense trip to Bali and a new Cadillac STS, what can I do in my division to create more profits?“ So you see, the corporate conglomerate mentality that leads to ever increasing productivity misfires when applied to mass media and results in poorer quality, because quality really does not matter. All that matters is “what can we sell that will make a profit”? The whole Couric as anchor person is a perfect example. Rather than spend tens of millions of dollars on new foreign bureaus, more reporters, more investigators, more producers etc. In other words invest in the quality of the news gathering, CBS management decided to invest tens of millions of dollars in getting Couric. Did hiring Couric improve the quality of the news? Are the stories more accurate and better researched than when Schaefer was the anchor? Apparently not, they are losing viewers in droves.
There is no solution other than what we see here with the increasing reliance on digital online news, new sources of news that live or die by the quality of their product. By quality I mean accuracy, you know, truthiness.
Edward R. Murrow would be horrified to see the current state of his profession.
Murrow was horrified at the contemporaneous state of his profession.
Back off, media. Obama's trying to protect your stock portfolios.
Journalists are afraid to ask serious questions of Bush. The press knows just what to expect if they engaged in true journalism. The whole of America is afraid of our Government for the same reasons.
"That double standard explained why there was so much media chatter last week after Obama, while making a good-natured social visit to the White House press workspace, waved off a substantive question about a high-level appointment of his. Pressed again by Politico's Jonathan Martin, Obama responded good-naturedly, "We will be having a press conference, at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys. That's all I was trying to do." ("A testy exchange," gasped Politico.)"
I agree with much of what you say in this essay, and I appreciate what Media Matters does. However, I was a little baffled by the above quotation. Was it necessary to descibe President Obama's interactions with the press corps as "good-natured" twice in the same sentence? Was it necessary to describe it at all? I think his response speaks for itself. I respect that this is an opinion column, but that sort of editorialization isn't necessary to get your point across.
Keep up the overall great work, though. Your Palin and pregnancy essay was stellar.
You know I actually was willing to give the Shrub some slack when I first saw him. You know uniter not divider and all the getting to know you stuff. I didn't vote for him and I'm glad I didn't because I would have had to kick myself for being so ignorant.
Then he went all neocon after 09/11, and started attacking and killing people and saying it was a crusade, oops, I mean war on terror. He was just out to lunch after that.
You know CNN says they are going to, "Keep Them Honest." I feel much better now that CNN will be protecting us.
But I still haven't got my question answered. CNN, where have you been for the last eight years?
I like it that the media woke up.
Let them scrutinize Democratic administrations 100 times more than Republican ones. I have no hope for Republician administrations.
50% better for the country that one party's actions are being scrutinized.
I noticed one big difference between Bush and Obama. Bush always needed to look at his aides, positioned along the side of the room or lined up in the back, for encouragement and moral support. Obama, not so much.
And I have also noticed that almost every day now, Ed Henry comes up with a story that has no 'there' there. He treats it like a big Woodward and Bernstein moment, and the anchor (Wolf?) compliments him on his "as usual" great reporting. I don't get it.
As for the treatment of the president by the press, maybe Bush just served more cookies and milk on the campaign plane.
Boy, ain't it the truth. I was floored earlier today to hear one sanctimonious news executive after another on NPR, huffing and puffing about how important the vigilance of the press is to our way of life and blah, blah, blah. Never have I wished more that I could reach into the radio and throttle someone. The absolute gall of these hipocritical b$st$rds defies belief! To hell with them! I can read whitehouse.gov and they can all go look for honest work.
Great, great article.
There is no mystery here, though.
All you need to do is label "The Press" as Corporate, and you have hit on the whole crux of the solution.
These MSM types are CORPORATE. They all are slanted, irrevocably, by their corporate masters, corporate dictates, corporate mindset.
Forget them being conservative, or rightwing, or republican. They are CORPORATE. Their job, at it's most basic level, is to be ANTI-HUMAN and PRO-CORPORATION. It is in their DNA to tear down anything that is working FOR THE PEOPLE and to help grease the rails for anything FOR THE COMPANY.
Please stop agonizing folks, on why they are so unfair. Why are they so one-sided, why do they not see their own hypocrisy, why do they move the goalposts and shift the playing field. It is not because they can't help it or because they are ideologically bankrupt.....It Is Because They Are Corporate Creatures, working in a Corporate Milieu in a Corporate State. They really have no choice.
Corporations have usurped our Public Airwaves and bought up all other media outlets. What did we think they were going to do with those Weapons of Mass Deception? Use them for the common good of all humanity, or turn them on us like a firehose for Mass Profitability and Propaganda?
Answer: Turn them on us like a firehose but all the while telling us they are doing it for the good of humanity.