It gets pretty boring to watch conservatives endlessly complain about a fawning press corps, and a biased media. Yes, a majority of the national media is left-leaning; even they will admit as much. Some journalists put political views aside, and do an excellent job of delivering the news. Others can’t bear to avoid political commentary. You can provide your own examples here. But the problem conservatives have these days can’t just be prescribed to one individual journalist, but more to “group-think” deciding what is and isn’t a national story. And …
Last week, CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported that the federal government was blocking media access to coastal areas around the Gulf, preventing them from taking photos and reporting on the environmental damage of the oil spill. You can watch the video and see Cooper is livid that the Obama administration is treating him and his colleagues this way. Cooper of course compares this to Katrina when media were blocked from…well we’re unsure what the media was blocked from in Katrina, since the photos and video from the Superdome, the Convention Center, …
Reporters covering a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” protest at the White House today were forced out of Lafayette Square by police. The scene, captured on video, is remarkable given the historical importance of the park as a protest spot across the street from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. President Obama, who boasts of the most transparent administration in history, is facing increasingly angry rhetoric on the issue. But the more important matter facing the administration today involves freedom of the press. Why would Secret Service officers, charged with protecting the White House, …
Sunday’s unprecedented presidential tour of (most of) the network news represents a subtle admission on the part of White House strategists that surely must unnerve his liberal allies. Obama, they seem to have concluded, is the only Administration official capable of making the case to the American people. Where, one must ask, are the usual suspects who traditionally man the battlements and carry the president’s message on major policy initiatives? Take another look at those YouTube videos of Sen. Arlen Specter’s raucous early August town hall meeting with Health and …
When was the last time a journalist asked a question about federalism in a presidential debate? Answer: 1960. The American news media, much like American politicians, are less and less attuned to what the Constitution actually says and more and more focused on the often vague notion of “rights.” News reporters, editors and producers are quick to wade into what they see as a juicy conflict over rights denied — at least those they ascribe to “community organizers” or atheists or gay activists or abortion clinics. The media don’t tend …
In the age of Obama, the media formerly known as mainstream can remind one of 19th century British literature. Pride and Prejudice sometimes, of course, but more often a favorite Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze. In it, the famous sleuth has the following exchange with Inspector Gregory: Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” The media, you …
In the news this morning: • rank-and-file Democrats resist President Obama’s attempt to take over health care, • Congress drops “card check” provisions–an Obama-backed power grab by unions, • Congressional Budget Office calls White House health care dreams prohibitively expensive. That’s from the front pages of Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Taken together, they show a picture of a Democratic congressional majority running away from a President trying to push this country way, way left. Not according to NPR.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BaEQX7fLZI[/youtube] During yesterday’s White House press briefing, reporters grilled spokesman Robert Gibbs on the growing trend of staged theatrics used by President Obama. Last week, when a Huffington Post columnist was hand-selected by the White House to ask a specific question of the President at a press briefing, the media was understandably upset. But when the White House unveiled its new reality TV show, “Health Care Town Halls,” with Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett acting as the host, the press had enough. Staged questions, hand-picked audiences, and still no answers. It appears the honeymoon between Obama and …
There’s strange and then there’s this. ABC’s Jake Tapper writes: It’s perfectly fine, of course, for the White House to put out its own version of events — but is it right to do so by preventing actual reporters from covering something? (Even something like a pickup basketball game). Do Obama White House officials think their media coverage isn’t flattering enough? Is the goal to ultimately replace the pesky photographers who film what they want to and not what they’re told to (not to mention the annoying reporters who ask …
Democrats made a loud point of boycotting Fox News Channel for perceived bias when the party scheduled a long string of presidential debates since early last year. Interesting, then, to surf Fox and its two cable news competitors last night to see how they covered and analyzed primary results in Vermont, Rhode Island, Ohio and Texas. Fox once again deployed veteran correspondent Brit Hume to anchor the election coverage. Hume, who won an Emmy for his Gulf War coverage, turned to conservative commentators like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity for …
