Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Boston Herald is banned: How the rest of the media should react

Long and short of it:  The Boston Herald's reporter was banned from the White House press pool because the thin-skinned whiny bitch in the Oval Office didn't like to read bad things about himself.  Boston.com reports the following message, sent to the Herald in response to their inquiry, by White House press aide Matt Lehrich:

I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters.

The Herald doth protest too much, but hey, if the president hands you a cudgel, why not swing it?  More importantly, Michael Graham, writing at the Herald, recites a long laundry list of offenses agaisn the First Amendment and the people's right to know by the most transparent administration evah:

Remember the White House’s self-declared “War On Fox News?” Upset by unfavorable coverage, they declared that Fox was “not a legitimate news organization,” tried to get a Fox reporter banned from a press pool interview and announced no more Obama interviews for the rest of the year. Team Obama only backed down when other media outlets objected.

Last month the White House kicked San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci out of the local press pool for recording protesters at an Obama event. And according to Chronicle editor at large Phil Bronstein, “more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla’s spanking became public.”

Then there was the Orlando Sentinel reporter stuck in a closet during a Joe Biden fundraiser by White House hacks. “Every time I . . . stepped out to see what was going on a staffer told me I couldn’t come out yet,” Scott Powers reported.

And now it’s the Herald...

On occasion, the media has banded together - as in the numerous early attempts Obama made to ice FOX news out of White House coverage - and demanded fair and equal treatment for all, lest the president get none.  It's time again for them to grow a pair, and take on the president, regardless of their affinity for his ideology.   At the next presser, pepper Jay Carney with questions about the ban of the Herald.  Couch questions to Carney and Obama in more aggressive, challenging tones.  Show him that their is a price to be paid for forcing the media to be pliant to his demands.

He cannot ban everyone.  Or, should he take that course, leave him to rubbing noses with Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, and see how that helps his approval ratings.  He'll fold - he needs the media more than they need him.

I realize the media is in love, but at what point does an battered and abused wife leave?

Graham claims the media has already shown their true colors:

 If a single major-paper reporter had been booted from a Bush event over editorial policy, journalists would have organized a hunger strike. But Obama does all this — and more — and liberals are silent. Why?

Because Barack Obama is the Nixon the left always wanted.

Last chance, guys, to show that you have any morals, and that you're not just militant Leftists who will support suppression when it suits your ideological needs.  Last chance to be taken seriously.  Final shot at saving your business model.  Time to fight, or die.

What path will you choose?