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Boston Herald shut out of press pool.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  May 18th, 2011 at 12:30 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Let us set the scenario.

  • On March 8, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed for the Boston Herald.  Title: “Obama Misery Index hits a record high:” it’s about jobs, unemployment, and how this is lousy at encouraging the former and good at encouraging the latter.
  • The Boston Herald decides to put said op-ed on the front page.  Again: former governor.  The Boston Herald doesn’t hate Republicans: after all, it endorsed McCain in 2008 (primary, too, so it’s not like they’re in the tank for Romney).
  • As it happens, the President visited Boston at about that time for a fundraiser for the DCCC (note that this was before his official announcement that he was running for re-election.
  • The White House was not happy about how the Boston Herald covered that particular event.  Which is to say, the President’s appearance at a fairly generic DCCC meet-and-greet did not get front-page coverage, apparently.
  • You know where this is going, don’t you?

Of course you do: the Boston Herald got shut out of full coverage of the President’s latest fundraising efforts in Boston.  The truly entertaining part?  Those genius polymaths in this administration still don’t understand how to talk to the press:

“My point about the op-ed was not that you ran it but that it was the full front page, which excluded any coverage of the visit of a sitting US President to Boston. I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the President’s visits,” [White House spokesman Matt] Lehrich wrote.

Not that the Obama campaign/administration ever needed to learn that particular life skill before now.  In the article, Glenn Reynolds (H/T, by the way) sums up rather well the image problem that the administration is starting to suffer from when he writes “Most presidents behave in a more refined fashion.”  Indeed, most do… because most Presidents got their position after having been subjected to a deliberately-brutal selection process.  Particularly the Republicans ones; we complain about media bias (with cause), but there’s no denying that it at least helps keep our party’s politicians on their toes.

Unfortunately – for the country, the Democratic party, and (increasingly) President Obama – our current Commander in Chief never got to experience the dubious joys of a good media curbstomping.    As a result, neither he nor his team is really ready to handle anything that resembles an adverse media atmosphere, which is why we keep seeing stories like this.  Whether or not these provocations by this administration will translate into actual warfare with the press later on is still open to question.  On the one hand, the media is predisposed to liking Democrats.  On the other hand, their favorite story in the whole, wide world is The God That Failed.

On the gripping hand, it’s not like they’re progressives, or anything: the media still has its pride and self-respect…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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COMMENTS

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  • bk
  • Next93

    Obamah may be in danger of losing his tailwind media if he keeps this up; even a lapdog will bite if you keep kicking it. You would have thought he’d have learned this in the battle over Fox News.

    On the other hand, we all know the cute girl in high school who only dates guys who treat her like dirt, so the question is, is the media smarter than a pekingese?

    wouldn’t it be amazing, though, if some news outlet actually looked into Obama’s past?

  • blooch

    to be going on between Jarrett and Daley?

    I think it’s a fight over the steering wheel. The MSM stenographers don’t do things like this without direct orders…or at least permission.

    Or maybe it’s the Hidden Hand of Hugh Hewitt…lol

  • sharonmcp

    I have no sympathy for the media at all. They brought it on themselves by being BHO’s lap dog for the past 3 years.

    That said, I have been concerned by this administration’s attempts to suppress freedom of the press.

    Apparently, I’m not the only one who is concerned.

    Obama’s Media Machine: State Run Media 2.0? – Feb. 15, 2011

    As the 2012 presidential campaign kicks into gear, President Obama’s White House media operation is demonstrating an unprecedented ability to broadcast its message through social media and the Internet, at times doing an end-run around the traditional press.

    The White House Press Office now not only produces a website, blog, YouTube channel, Flickr photo stream, and Facebook and Twitter profiles, but also a mix of daily video programming, including live coverage of the president’s appearances and news-like shows that highlight his accomplishments…

    …But while these innovative communications tools ostensibly offer greater transparency and openness, critics say they have come at a troublesome expense: less accountability of the administration by the independent, mainstream press.

    Over the past few months, as White House cameras have been granted free reign behind the scenes, officials have blocked broadcast news outlets from events traditionally open to coverage and limited opportunities to publicly question the president himself…

    …”The administration has narrowed access by the mainstream media to an unprecedented extent,” said ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton, who has covered seven administrations. “Access here has shriveled.”

    Members of the press have always had quibbles with White House media strategies, calling cut-backs in access an affront to transparency, even as administration officials insist they’re simply taking advantage of new technologies.

    But some say the current dynamic is different, and dangerous.

    “They’re opening the door to kicking the press out of historic events, and opening the door to having a very filtered format for which they give the American public information that doesn’t have any criticism allowed,” said University of Minnesota journalism professor and political communication analyst Heather LaMarre…

    SF Chronicle video prompts White House threat – Published 04/29/2011

    The White House threatened Thursday to exclude The San Francisco Chronicle from pooled coverage of its events in the Bay Area after the paper posted a video of a protest at a San Francisco fundraiser for President Obama last week, Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee said…

    White House credibility gap on press coverage – Published 04/30/2011

    The White House communications operation has a credibility problem. On Thursday, key people in that office told The Chronicle in plain language that reporter Carla Marinucci would be banished as a pool reporter for future presidential visits because she shot video of a protest inside an Obama fund-raising event in San Francisco. The White House further threatened “retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban,” said Editor Ward Bushee.

    On Friday, the White House flat-out denied that such exchanges took place.

    “Not true,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told Politico.com when asked about the threat.

    This is not a matter of spinning reality.

    “It is not a truthful response,” Bushee said, bluntly…

  • RSSS

    Isn’t the Boston Herald a conservative newspaper, like the Washington Times?

    Enlighten me, please.

  • rickbull

    Only ones that are not quite as liberal.

  • rickbull
  • rickbull

    Dear Leader never had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mike Wallace. I would have paid GOOD MONEY to see that 60 Minutes episode.

  • Tbone

    doesn’t taste like chocolate.

  • Adjoran

    The word is that any critical reporting results in angry calls to editors, producers, executives. Obama does not tolerate negative coverage and typically uses access as his Hammer of Compliance +4.

    It is press intimidation on a scale never seen from an American President, and it is a threat to the public good.