Our Venal Mainstream Media: Selling Nonconfrontational Access to Obama Administration

Will Malven
7/02/2009

There is no greater betrayal of the public trust and more serious violation of journalistic ethics than the display of cheerleading and issue advocacy now being displayed by the mainstream media and their subservience to the Obama Administrations agenda.

Politico today reveals a new low for one of the mainstays of our "watchdog" press. It now appears that the Washington Post is selling access to reporters and editors to members of the administration and its advocates.

Washington Post sells access, $25,000+

By MIKE ALLEN
7/2/09 8:04 AM EDT

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.

This revelation following on the heels of ABC's day long "infomercial" broadcast from the White House promoting the Obama Administration's national healthcare plan...a broadcast in which no opposing views were allowed or expressed illustrates just how far the much vaunted "Fourth Estate" has strayed from its self-proclaimed mission as watchdog over our government and the abuses therein.

Not since World War II has there been such close collaboration between the press and an administration to shape the message being put out to the American people.

This administration of "Hope and Change" and its "new era of openness" has been one of the most tightly controlled and scripted in history. The President rarely takes a question which has not been pre-approved by its operatives. The president's dependence on his teleprompters has been so obvious that it has become the butt of jokes and even generated a website alleged to be the TOTUS' (Teleprompter of the United States) blog, Barack Obama's Teleprompter's Blog.

This scripting and attempted control of the press and the message has become so blatant that it prompted Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the Liberal press to express outrage over the President's latest faux "town hall meeting," in which not only the attendees were carefully screened, but the questions were pre-approved by Obama's staff.

From CNS news:

Helen Thomas: Not Even Nixon Tried to Control the Media Like Obama

Wednesday, July 01, 2009
By Penny Starr and Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) - Following a testy exchange during today’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.

The pat response from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and other Obama defenders is to say "But look how tough the questions were," as though that absolves them of the charge.

Ummm...Robert, it doesn't matter how tough the questions are if you know them ahead of time and are able to prepare your responses to them.

I never thought I would be cheerleading Helen Thomas, but you go girl! For a hardcore Liberal member of the press known for her hostility to all things Conservative to be so motivated speaks volumes as to the level of the corruption now being demonstrated by our so called "free press" as they have changed their role from inquisitor to advocate.

This lack of skepticism in our press and their consequent failure to fully investigate and inform the American people as to what the Democrats and this President are attempting to "accomplish" is a grave threat to the continued existence of our Republic and our freedom.

The first act of any despot is to take control of the press and the message being broadcast to his nation's citizens. President Obama has not had to do this because the mainstream media has surrendered it independence voluntarily.

It remains up to those of us in the unofficial press, the blogosphere to carry on the tradition of inquisitor and skeptic in the face of this neglect of their duties by the "Fourth Estate."

Hopefully members of the press who retain at least a shred of their dignity and sense of duty to the American people can shame other members of the media into performing their jobs as they are supposed to do.


Ya know it brings an old Cole Porter song to mind, "Love for Sale:"

Love for sale,
Appetising young love for sale.
"...Love that's fresh and still unspoiled,
Love that's only slightly soiled,
Love for sale.

Who will buy?
Who would like to sample my supply?
Who's prepared to pay the price,
For a trip to paradise?
Love for sale..."

The Washington Post - and most of the mainstream media has "Love for Sale" to the Obama Administration.

Long Live Our American Republic!!!!

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