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#Post#: 17369--------------------------------------------------
Obama administration most ‘dangerous’ to media in history
DIR By: udontnojack
Date: November 2, 2014, 5:20 am
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HTML http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/10/27/usa-todays-susan-page-obama-administration-most-dangerous-to-media-in-history/
At some point, a compendium of condemnations against the Obama
administration’s record of media transparency (actually,
opacity) must be assembled. Notable quotations in this vein come
from former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, who
said, “It is the most secretive White House that I have ever
been involved in covering”; New York Times reporter James Risen,
who said, “I think Obama hates the press”; and CBS News’s Bob
Schieffer, who said, “This administration exercises more control
than George W. Bush’s did, and his before that.”
USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page has added a sharper
edge to this set of knives. Speaking Saturday at a White House
Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) seminar, Page called the
current White House not only “more restrictive” but also “more
dangerous” to the press than any other in history, a clear
reference to the Obama administration’s leak investigations and
its naming of Fox News’s James Rosen as a possible
“co-conspirator” in a violation of the Espionage Act.
The WHCA convened the event both to strategize over how to open
up the byways of the self-proclaimed most transparent
administration in history, as well as to compare war stories on
the many ways in which it is not. Peter Baker, the veteran
Washington reporter from the New York Times, provided perhaps
the best instance of White House-administered madness. In
covering a breaking story recently, Baker received a note from a
White House handler indicating that President Obama had been
briefed on the matter in question.
That information came to Baker “on background.” The gist: Not
from me — a meeting has occurred..
Other gripes: Correspondents took aim at large-scale “deep
background” briefings — attended by up to 40-odd reporters — at
which ground rules specify no names for the officials in
attendance and no quotations of anything they say. ABC News
Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl spoke of covering
the Boston Marathon bombings. As the story developed, Karl noted
that the White House wasn’t giving out any information at all.
So he went around it and found out that the feds were sending
their high-value interrogation team to Boston. “No way I would
have gotten that out of the White House,” said Karl.
Bloomberg White House correspondent Margaret Talev noted how the
White House stopped giving details on the fine wines served at
state dinners, an opaque measure that she exposed in this story.
In pursuing the piece, said Talev, she got the runaround from
White House press officials, making her “so mad at them.” Over
the course of a few weeks, she had to become, in essence, a wine
correspondent.
Saturday was an appropriate moment to air such grievances. The
day before, President Obama had opened the White House doors to
Nina Pham, the Texas nurse who had just completed her recovery
from Ebola at the National Institutes of Health. Prior to the
session, the White House announced that still photographers
would be allowed to document the proceedings. But print
reporters and TV cameras would be out in the cold. At a briefing
with White House press secretary Josh Earnest, Karl asked why.
Earnest responded that “many of you did have the opportunity to
see [Pham] deliver remarks at the NIH upon her departure from
the hospital.”
Karl: “That’s not answering the question. Why was this decision
made?”
Earnest: “Because reporters did have the opportunity to see her
speak already.” Also, the press secretary said that neither
President Obama nor Pham planned on making any comments at the
event. Taken together, those explanations amount to a lump of
nothing.
Talev said Saturday that it was “ridiculous” the White House
didn’t provide full media access to the Pham-Obama meeting. In a
Friday afternoon chat with the Erik Wemple Blog, recently
retired ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton struggled
to fathom the rationale for restricting access, given that the
White House has been aggressive in sending the message that it’s
fighting Ebola: “She’s been in government medical care for the
last how many days?” notes Compton. “And she walks out
unexpectedly looking terrific — why wouldn’t you want the world
to see that the U.S. is doing what the White House has said? So
today makes no sense to me.”
Yet there’s more texture to this access question. Last November,
a large group of news organizations sent a letter to the White
House protesting limited access for their photographers at
newsworthy events involving the president. “The restrictions
imposed by the White House on photographers covering these
events, followed by the routine release by the White House of
photographs made by government employees of these same events,
is an arbitrary restraint and unwarranted interference on
legitimate newsgathering activities. You are, in effect,
replacing independent photojournalism with visual press
releases,” read the letter, in part.
One such visual press release fell into the laps of the media
just last month. Obama met Sept. 16 at the White House with
Ebola survivor Kent Brantly, a doctor who had contracted the
virus while assisting patients in Liberia. Reporters and
photographers weren’t allowed to attend that meeting, leaving
news organizations with the option of running a photo from
official White House photographer Pete Souza or choosing some
other half-measure.
Doug Mills, a New York Times photographer who has been covering
White Houses going back to the Reagan administration, says that,
to the best of his recollection, the media wasn’t aware of the
Brantly meeting until the White House released Souza’s photo.
“Obviously we were pretty upset about it,” says Mills, though he
noted that there was no firestorm over this episode. After some
quiet discussions with others, Mills asked to have a chat with
Earnest. “He apologized,” says Mills of Earnest. “He said,
‘We’ll do better,’ and I think that they have honestly tried to
do better in every situation. … I think the relationship has
gotten stronger, and I think Josh is making a lot of efforts to
get us in” to events, says Mills.
Referring to the Pham photo access, Mills says, “I would say
that this is a pretty good example of progress.” Christi
Parsons, the WHCA’s president, tells the Erik Wemple Blog a
similar story — that the White House has “increased” the number
of opportunities for still photographers since last year’s
protest.
The differing reactions to Pham’s appearance at the White House
expose what a headache it is to run the WHCA. Radio, print,
broadcast, still photographers — they all have different needs
when it comes to access. One of the few things all agree on is
that representatives from all media factions be allowed into
everything. Which will happen at the same exact time that the
government fulfills all pending FOIA requests.
There are other signs of improvement, according to Parsons. The
White House is working on a weekly basis with a WHCA liaison to
discuss “opportunities for more coverage,” with the result that
“there have been several times when we have been able to work
new coverage opportunities into the schedule,” she says. WHCA is
now working on a set of “objectives” for further access to the
White House, and at Saturday’s event there was a bit of
fantasizing about a weekly Q&A session with the president
himself.
When asked about this stuff, White House spokesman Eric Schultz
issued this (on-the-record) response: “We believe in the value
of transparency, and that is why we work to provide as much
access as we can. That said, the press has a responsibility to
always push for more access and if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be
doing their jobs.”
#Post#: 17373--------------------------------------------------
Re: Obama administration most ‘dangerous’ to media in history
DIR By: trollslayer
Date: November 2, 2014, 8:41 am
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They believe in transparency my a$$!! There isn't a journalist
out there with any kind of experience who says this is one of
the "most transparent in history". The idea that they would
name a correspondent a "co conspirator" or place another (Steve
Hayes) on the terrorist watch list shows just how far this
administration will go to intimidate journalists. Sheryl
Attkison formerly of CBS, has a book coming out this week. In
it she explains while working the Benghazi story her home and
work computer were hacked and all fingers point to the White
House.
--- Quote ---
>
> In her new book “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the
Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s
Washington,” the reporter said she had her computer checked out
by a source she refers to as “Number One.” The individual
concluded that what was done to her computer was “worse than
anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like
this could happen in the United States of America.”
--- End Quote ---
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