The Press: Government Lapdogs
It is almost like the Soviet Union, but worse. At least in the Soviet Union, there was a penalty for not collborating with the state. These guys do it quite voluntarily. They do it because they are on the team. -Chris Plante
"We created an echo chamber. They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say." -Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes on White House manipulation of the press 
Congratulations, liberals of the Washington press corps and elite organizations: You’re a bunch of suckers. We all know this because the Obama White House just told us so.
In an astounding New York Times piece by David Samuels, senior White House officials gleefully confess they use friendly reporters and nonprofits as public relations tools in the selling of President Obama’s foreign policy — and can do it almost at will because these tools are ignorant, will believe what they’re told, will essentially take dictation and are happy to be used just to get the information necessary for a tweet or two. -John Podhoretz
“The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns,” Rhodes says. “They literally know nothing.”
Then there are others his assistant Ned Price refers to as “force multipliers,” more senior reporters and pundits who parrot what they’re told. “I’ll give them some color,” Price says, using the journalistic term for juicy bits of inside-baseball detail, “and the next thing I know, lots of these guys are in the dot-com publishing space, and have huge Twitter followings, and they’ll be putting this message out on their own.” -John Podhoretz
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Character, Financial, Press, Greed, Corruption
A group that played a key role in helping the Obama administration secure the Iran deal paid National Public Radio $100,000 in 2015 to cover the nuclear agreement, according to recent filings. The Ploughshares Fund explained online in its annual report that it awarded the grant to NPR to encourage, "national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran's nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security."
The nonproliferation advocacy group also boasted on its website that it was instrumental in seeing the Iran deal passed.... NPR hosted the group's president, Joseph Cirincione, at least twice in 2015 to discuss the Iran deal.
Government Lapdogs
"When you watch the President like that, I always feel he’s got so many pluses, doesn’t he? In a sense, he’s personable, he’s handsome, he can be funny. You know, abroad he has this great image for America. A lot of things are just perfect about Barack Obama." — Piers Morgan, CNN
In an email dated October 4, 2011, Attorney General Holder’s top press aide, Tracy Schmaler, called Attkisson “out of control.” Schmaler told White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz that he intended to call CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer to get the network to stop Attkisson... Schultz also told Schmaler that he was working with reporter Susan Davis, then at the National Journal, to target Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA). Issa led the House investigation into Fast and Furious. Davis now works at USA Today. In the email chain, Schultz tells Schmaler that he would provide Davis with “leaks.” Davis wrote a critical piece on Issa a few weeks later.
Liberal, Incompetence, Press
The Associated Press and other press outlets have agreed not to report on suspected cases of Ebola in the United States until a positive viral RNA test is completed.
The Washington Post
Completely Wrong on Steele Dossier
Shane "I cover intelligence and national security for the @washingtonpost" Harris
December 2019:
We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order.
-Inspector General Michael Horowitz
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Press
Producers behind a CNN documentary series on Rahm Emanuel -- a series billed as unscripted -- coordinated closely with the Chicago mayor's staff on everything from camera shots to storylines, according to a new report based on hundreds of internal emails... Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton told FoxNews.com that the office worked with the CNN team to highlight "the great work being done in Chicago," as it would with any news outlet.
The Press: Government Party Shills...
The mainstream news media are no longer trustworthy. Almost without exception, they're either parroting the "party line", or (if not actively supporting it) ignoring anything contrary to the "party line". They are no longer disseminating "news". They are disseminating what the powers that be want us to believe.
The Iran deal, you may recall, was wildly unpopular with the American people. To ensure senators didn’t cast a two-thirds vote against it and kill it, the White House set up a digital response “war room” whose purpose was relentlessly to make the case that a vote against the deal was a vote for war.
It could only work if water-carriers did the White House’s job for it, and nonprofit water-carriers did their faithful duty. “We created an echo chamber,” Rhodes tells Samuels about the journalists and think-tankers who were discussing the Iran deal based almost entirely on information given to them by the White House. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.” -John Podhoretz
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Press, Lie, Hoax
A CBS reporter from Arizona reveals that President Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, receives questions from the press in advance of his daily press briefing. In fact, she says, the reporters often receive the answers in advance of the briefing, too.
They Hate Journalists For Good Reason...
They could have managed the shock if it only involved the government. But the behavior of the corporate press is really what radicalized them. They hate journalists more than they hate any politician or gov't official, because they feel most betrayed by them.
The idea that the press is driven by ratings/sensationalism became untenable. If that were true, they'd be all over the Epstein story. The corporate press is the propaganda arm of the Regime they now see in outline. Nothing anyone says will ever make them unsee that, period.
This is profoundly disorienting. Many of them don't know for certain whether ballots were faked in November 2020, but they know for absolute certain that the press, the FBI, etc would lie to them if there was.
They have every reason to believe that, and it's probably true.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Press
Senator Rockefeller (D. W Va) also suggested news organizations "are anxious and willing to receive guidance [from the Clinton Administration] on how to time and shape their [news] coverage."
Editorial, Liberal, Government, Press, Bigbrother
“We have to think more about when we use cellphones, when we use e-mail and when we need to meet sources in person,” said Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of the Associated Press. “We need to be more and more aware that government can track our work without talking to our reporters, without letting us know.” -We're so proud of how you in the press have suffered through all this with hardly a complaint. We're all in this together after all. -RB
State TV
This is part of the problem with "news." Too often it's become state TV, talking points, propaganda, press releases, narratives.
— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) August 1, 2017
The Sovietization of the American Press...
Soviet newspapers were wrought with such anvil shamelessness that it’s difficult to imagine anyone ever read them without laughing. A good Soviet could write almost any Pravda headline in advance...
Some of the headlines in the U.S. press lately sound suspiciously like this kind of work:
- Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty
- Champion of the middle class comes to the aid of the poor
- Biden's historic victory for America
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Character, Press
President Obama said during Wednesday’s remarks in Illinois that he hears from members of the media all the time that his economic plans are solid... But behind-the-scenes, Mr. Obama said these reporters tell a different story — one that’s much more complimentary in tone. “I know because they’ve said so,” Mr. Obama said, in The Hill. “But they worry they’ll face swift political retaliation for cooperating with me.”
“And I sent NJ’s [National Journal's] Susan Davis your way. She’s writing on Issa/FandF and I said you could load her up on the leaks, etc.” -White House Deputy Press Sectrary Eric Schultz to DOJ Press aide Tracy Schmaler
Liberal, Government, Press, Corruption
Josh Marshall (10:15a.m.): Lerner Must Go … Ezra Klein (9:45a.m.): Heads should roll at IRS... Just 18 hours earlier, The Washington Post's Ezra Klein and Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo were spotted headed into the West Wing with a gaggle of other left-wing columnists. It should be noted that Klein doesn’t specifically call for Lois Lerner to be fired, but both are calling for "firings" at the IRS within a half-hour of one another.
A Threat To A Viable Democracy...
"It should be borne in mind that the first step taken by any potential authoritarian or dictatorial regime is to gain control of communications, particularly the delivery of news. It is fair to conclude, therefore, that one-party control of the press and media is a threat to a viable democracy."
Liberal, Government, Obama, Character, Media
Can we be visionary? Can we really step into what this moment is? And that's why I say I want him to be a great president. But we got to help. We can't abandon him now. We can't abandon our posts. What are we going to do to help make him a great president?
Corporate media has shown itself to be both a servant of financial + political interests, a malicious provocateur of civil unrest for short term gain, and an eager enemy of free and alternative media.
Liberal, Oops, Press, Bias
The press overwhelmingly bought into the Obama administration's version of events on the attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, according to a new study Friday by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which tracks news reports. CMPA analysts said press accounts framed the attack as a spontaneous protest — the Obama administration's initial version of events — four times more often than they called it a terrorist assault, which was what Republicans and even some Democrats identified it as in the days right after Sept. 11.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Press, Metaphor, Constitution
“She said, ‘I need to see your camera right now.’” Barr said. The staffer called Barr’s presence in the non-press area an “unfair advantage” over the other members of the media at the event. The staffer then requested to watch as Barr deleted the photos from his camera to ensure his compliance, Barr said. After deleting the photos from the camera, the staffer asked Barr to show her his iPhone to make sure no photos were saved. Barr complied.
Liberal, Funny, Press
The Associated Press is trying to get its Washington, DC bureau designated a “prostitution free zone.”... Here's a hint to the AP from Bourgeois Norm: Have frequent fire drills.