WaPo:

The White House’s relationship with the reporters who cover it has blown hot and cold throughout history. And this year, some reporters say, things have taken a decidedly frosty turn.

When a reporter gets something wrong or is perceived as being too aggressive, the response is often swift and sometimes at top volume, reporters say. …

Glenn Thrush, who is a reporter for a Web site and Capitol Hill newspaper, Politico, said his encounters have been far more mild than what he experienced as a reporter covering New York City politics for Newsday.

“Coming from a New York tabloid background, having a flack speak to me in an elevated tone does not make me crawl under my desk,” he said. “It does not terrify me to have someone raise their voice occasionally. The expectation in covering the White House is that it’s always going to be about using the good china. Sometimes this is about paper plates.”

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Kudos to Jake Tapper for showing his fellow White House press members, save for Ed Henry, how journalism is done.

Media is supposed to be antagonistic towards the government; they are its check and balance. When media doesn’t do its job, government runs amuck, and the citizenry suffers. When media dropped the ball decades ago, the citizenry revolted, and, aided by new technologies, took up the mantle of watching the government.

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Most transparent administration ever.

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“When you go write your stories …”

Apparently the Obama White House is not so fond of the Boston Herald. Well, maybe “not so fond” is too mild. More like furious. So mad, in fact, that the paper was banned by the White House from covering local visits by Obama and crew. The Boston Herald said “pretty please” and Big Brother O’s crew said, “not allowed!” And Orwell would be saying, “I told ya so.”

As Politico explained, the White House designates local pool reporters to augment the traveling pool of reporters covering events on the road. Usually a request is all it takes to get added to the pool. But when the Herald contacted the White House to get its reporters added to the pool the paper was denied access.

Apparently the water in Obama’s pool is too warm for the Boston Herald!

So, what is the deal? How did the White House explain this banning of the Herald? They actually didn’t bother to explain it at all, haughtily ignoring the question. However, a White House press staffer told the Herald that it was because the president was not happy that the paper dared to print an op ed by Mitt Romney.

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The Bookworm has a good roundup of the ever-changing narratives spilling forth from bin Laden’s death:

Usually when governments use misinformation, they use it to make themselves look good.  The Obama Administration gets points for originality, insofar as it’s been using disinformation and misinformation to make itself look arbitrary, unlawful, helpless and stupid.  Here’s jj’s great summary:

Okay, what do we have here:

1) There was a firefight.
2) There was no firefight.
3) Bin Laden was “resisting.”
4) Bin Laden wasn’t armed.  (Makes the concept of “resisting” interesting.)
[4.a) And the newest one: the SEALS thought bin Laden was reaching for a weapon.]
5) He used his wife as a shield.
6) His wife was killed too.
7) He didn’t use his wife as a shield.  She ran at a SEAL who shot her in the leg, but she’s fine.
8 ) Some other woman — the maid? — was used as a shield.  By somebody.  Downstairs.
9) That other woman — downstairs — was killed.
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From Poynter:

Reuters White House photographer Jason Reed describes how the president made his speech to a single TV camera, then immediately after finishing, he pretended to speak for the still cameras.

Reed writes:

“As President Obama continued his nine-minute address in front of just one main network camera, the photographers were held outside the room by staff and asked to remain completely silent. Once Obama was off the air, we were escorted in front of that teleprompter and the President then re-enacted the walk-out and first 30 seconds of the statement for us.”

That means the photograph that appeared in many newspapers Monday morning of Obama speaking may have been the staged shot, captured after the president spoke. This type of staging has been going on for decades.

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It would seem that if you are giving a public speech at a public location that free men have the right to report about what you say. Maybe not.

“PLEASE NOTE: President Clinton’s representatives have mandated that there be absolutely no reporting during his session. That includes live blogging, Tweeting, Facebook posting or use of any other social media. We understand the inconvenience this may present, but greatly appreciate your compliance. Thank you.”

No word yet why Clinton’s handlers have mandated no reporting during the keynote.

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So what’s the most dangerous nation on earth for journalists? Which nation jails and tortures them at the highest rate?

The question was answered on June 16 by the Committee to Protect Journalists‘ Executive Director, Joel Simon. The setting was a hearing on “Press Freedom in the Americas,” held by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.  And quite interestingly, none of that very hemispheric press has yet seen fit to report this item.

So let’s ask the multiple Peabody and Emmy award winning American journalist Dan Rather if he knows who jails and tortures the most journalists on earth.

Fidel Castro is Cuba’s Elvis!

Nope.  Seems that Dan’s no help. Okay, now let’s ask the same question to Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism- winner, Andrea Mitchell: (more…)

It’s a notion commonly peddled by both Democrats and the MSM that President Obama is a “master communicator.” This notion is repeated by liberal television pundit and scribe ad nauseam apparently in the belief that endless repetition can turn Wish into Truth.

Yet empirical evidence and closer scrutiny suggest that Mr. Obama is actually less Great Communicator than Serial Monologist, in the vein of Jerry Seinfeld, the late George Carlin (sans profanity), or even (brace yourself) Glenn Beck. And frankly, all three of them talk rings around him.

For those who doubt my doubt of the President’s rhetorical prowess, consider the following. The April 13 press conference—a short one consisting of only 8 questions, all quite understandably on the nuclear security issue—was the first solo presser since July 22, 2009.

That’s a 265-day desert without presidential communication. Or 51 days longer (20%) than George W. Bush’s 214-day stretch (April 4-Nov. 4) of logophobia back in 2004. Bush emerged from his silence two days after the Nov. 2 presidential election, suggesting his self-imposed gag order was mainly a bit of “strategery”—an incumbent with the lead, playing ball-control so as not to make a fatal gaffe in the final quarter.

Which begs two questions. First, why is the President ducking the press conference Q&A arena? And second, what makes a “Great Communicator” great? (more…)

Many media analysts say that today’s summit is all about the President gaming the healthcare debate. In fact, there is a much more interesting story at hand:  The impact on the American conservative class—and its impact on legislators.

This “Healthcare Summit” is the first and most visible litmus test of conservative leadership in Washington.  Simply:  After the elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts, conservatives are watching to see what kind of people they have sitting opposite the President.

For half a century, conservative voters sent their representatives to Washington, only to watch many of them bow and retreat before their liberal counterparts.  This was due, in part, to a monopoly of the press by the left, which allowed every debate to be defined by their terms.

Still, the result was that conservatives felt betrayed and insulted.  Either they had voted for a person who thought that the people who elected them couldn’t understood (or learn) the issues at hand, or they had elected a person who was so weak they couldn’t or wouldn’t formulate an argument to defend their principles.

Those days are gone.  Conservative voters are turning the tables.  What remains to be seen today is how “conservative” legislators respond to their conservative voter base. (more…)

We used to think of the British and European press as far more politicized than ours; after all, their newspapers freely chose up sides and when you picked up a Tory paper such as The Telegraph, a center-right paper like The Times, a center-left paper like The Independent, and a leftist paper like the Guardian, you pretty much knew what you were getting.

American newspapers, on the other hand, were “neutral” and “objective,” like The New York Times and the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francsico Chronicle.

Right.

So how to explain this minor paddling of the “objective” American media by the equally “objective” Columbia Journalism Review: (more…)