Patterico's Pontifications

5/18/2011

Once Again, Obama Tries to Bully the Press

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 6:47 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Outrageous:

The White House Press Office has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama’s Boston fund-raiser today, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper’s front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news “fairly.”

“I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” White House spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote in response to a Herald request for full access to the presidential visit.

“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,” Lehrich wrote.

But then after saying that, Lehrich denied actually banning them?

But Lehrich said the Herald wasn’t purposefully barred from the press pool, saying local pool duty by the Boston Globe was arranged earlier with the White House Correspondents Association. And Lehrich insisted the Herald may yet be allowed into Obama events.

As they say read the whole thing.  I do recall that when they tried to openly exclude Fox News from the White House Press Room the media did step up.  Let’s hope the same happens here.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

26 Responses to “Once Again, Obama Tries to Bully the Press”

  1. Devoting the front page to an op-ed by a presidential candidate is a little unusual, but we’re talking about a column that was published more than two months ago…

    I should mention that the Herald and Globe would in New York terms be the Post and the Times.

    kishnevi (4fe729)

  2. personally i don’t care if they have that Psychology today blogger claiming obama is objectively less attractive than mitt romney, the fact is their content is none of their f—ing business.

    Aaron Worthing (73a7ea)

  3. Devoting the front page to an op-ed by a presidential candidate is a little unusual, but we’re talking about a column that was published more than two months ago…

    It’s Boston, and the big news right now in politics is who will run on the GOP side. Obama visiting town to raise a little cash is not important news for 99.999% of Bostonians. That’s just trivia. He visited my town too recently. I saw his helicopter, even. Whoopdeedoo.

    But Mitt Romney is a major figure in MA politics, and it’s not like he drops Op Eds in that paper all the time. It was more important. Obama writing an op ed would also be more important than whether or not he graced my town that day, if that makes him feel a little better.

    This is a warning shot. Obama doesn’t care about this op ed. He cares about the next one, and the rest of the media coverage. It is critical to his reelection that he keep the media under his control. He needs those voters earning $100,000 to $250,000 to stay in the dark about the absolute certainty that Obama’s policies require massive tax increases on them.

    That old democrat saw that they are shocked people vote ‘against their interests’ when a poor guy supports Bush or a woman supports Mccain might actually do a little more damage to the ‘me me me’ party.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  4. More of the “nice business you have here, I’d sure hate to see it set on fire” treatment by the Obama Administration.

    It’s the Chicago Way.

    Beldar (7c0dd5)

  5. Cue Val Jar in 3..2..1….
    “We’re speaking truth(y) to power baby…”

    Chris (eafa5f)

  6. He needs those voters earning less than $250,000 to stay in the dark about the absolute certainty that Obama’s policies require massive tax increases on them.

    FTFY. Anyone who pays taxes is going to see a massive tax increase.

    But I repeat my point: do you know of any newspaper giving its front page over to anyone for an op-ed? The full front page? Whether or not its written by a former governor and/or presidential candidate.

    (I couldn’t find a link to the op-ed, but the Herald’s own reporter seems to say it was a full front page, so I assume it was, and not just an Obama spokesperson exaggeration.)

    Even the Grey Lady of New York put Obama in the regular op-ed section when he wrote one last year.

    kishnevi (4fe729)

  7. FTFY. Anyone who pays taxes is going to see a massive tax increase.

    Right, but in particular, it’s that group of people who are strong supporters of Obama.

    But I repeat my point: do you know of any newspaper giving its front page over to anyone for an op-ed?

    I have to assume it’s not usual, but who cares? It’s a location in a set of pages. Apparently this paper thought Romney’s op ed was more important than what Obama wanted them to print about Obama’s visit. And they were right on that count.

    Was there something they should have put on their front page instead? That’s for them to decide, of course. Even if it’s not normal. If they want to run color cartoons Monday – Saturday, and black and whites on Sunday, that’s none of Obama’s business either.

    It’s just rhetoric. If Romney’s rhetoric is so powerful that Obama can’t allow it to be exposed on the front page, then yes, it belongs there. Otherwise, perhaps the location of the op ed doesn’t matter.

    Granted, of course it matters. Papers bury inconvenient facts off the front page all the time. Speech Czar Obama never seems to complain about that.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  8. I don’t care if the only thing in that entire edition of the Herald was that op-ed, and it was printed in big black letters, with bright red high-lights, on one side of a single sheet of newsprint. This is an immoral, and blatantly political, use of presidential power. It’s shameful, and it’s the Obama Way.

    Beldar (7c0dd5)

  9. Let me expand that: It’s an abuse of presidential power in precisely an area in which the president has an inherent constitutional duty to ensure fairness — providing equal access for the American public, through the press, to probe the president and his spokespeople, to petition their president for redress of legitimate grievances. Politicizing the White House press corps is a particularly shameful abuse of power, or should be if Team Obama were not, literally, shameless.

    Beldar (7c0dd5)

  10. Control the message, control the meme.

    Icy Texan (613df9)

  11. Amen Beldar… Amen…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  12. In a few years, those Boston Herald reporters are going to have a hell of a hard time getting their journalist licenses.

    Murgatroyd (fd5fcd)

  13. Tries to bully? He’s gotten away with it so far.

    glenn (2a84e9)

  14. It was precious to watch Larry O’Donnell actually take the WH to task on this action for being so petty.

    Icy Texan (613df9)

  15. Interesting to see how the media handles this story. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell blasted the Obama administration for this act. That speaks highly of the integrity of that network.

    Did Fox News ever make any mention of the staged Bush townhalls and teleconferences with troops? Of course not.

    One side lies and plays apologist, one side has integrity. It’s easy to see.

    Victory (8b3a2d)

  16. staged Bush townhalls

    Oh, this is gonna be rich…

    Vic, please cite evidence from a source that isn’t DU, DKos, or HuffPo…

    Scott Jacobs (d027b8)

  17. The sheeple buy into the the Big Lie. And you rethuglicans who blissly mock Obama are racists who wany Amerikkka turned back to the Jim Crow era. So today Powerline has a peition ad by a liberal front moaning once again about GOP robbing Gore of Presidency and warning that it is about to happen again. It seems GOP in Fla. wants to tighten up voting standards making it more difficult for Democrats to cheat, er I mean, harder for common man to vote at last minute or change address at last minute.
    But seriously one wonders how much impact the Black Panthers and other liberal protectors of voting rights will have going forward. Thank god for a great AG like Holder who treats everyone equally.

    Calypso Louie Farrakhan (d36a3f)

  18. Calypso LF: I don’t recall the Bush WH ever putting out their own press releases or pictures and claiming it to be news either.

    As for voting: Get a fuching license or state ID. It’s not that hard. As for not allowing people to vote? Really? Wasn’t it Dade county (run by dems) who clusterscrewed the butterfly ballot and then claimed that we should essentially revote because people couldn’t figure it out? I’ve voted in MI, UT & Cali and perhaps it’s a coincidence, but EVERY election I recieved a SAMPLE BALLOT in the mail. You have to be an IDIOT to fail a take home test. . . particularly one where the answers are “any of the above” are correct.

    And I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret: The electioin is 18 months away. You can even plan for a year and still have 6 months to get an ID. Of course, the bulk of people who can’t do that are waiting for Obama to give them free houses in their next gov’t teet check.

    Steve in SoCal (457fff)

  19. “the paper is unbiased” An oxymoron, all papers are biased. It’s just that the Boston Herald isn’t a part of the Democratic propaganda apparatus, so they’ll actually be critical of the administration.

    LarryD (feb78b)

  20. There is no press in this country. Just a bunch of Soros funded college grads with I pads and Democrat Party ID’s.

    kansas (313837)

  21. While I’m sure the White House would have liked some advance publicity of today’s fundraiser, I find it a little humorous that they got their panties in a twist because:

    a newspaper didn’t include an article about an event that hadn’t even happen yet

    and retaliated by not allowing the newspaper to attend the event (and thereby preventing any article reporting the event)

    Weird

    Susan (4d6083)

  22. Did Fox News ever make any mention of the staged Bush townhalls and teleconferences with troops? Of course not.

    ha

    This comes across like asking ‘Did CNN ever make any mention of the lizard people living under the pentagon? Of course not.’

    Bush was not this evil genius manipulating the media with staged events. If you still believe that nonsense, I am honestly more amused than anything else.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  23. You’re not supposed to reveal that, Dustin, lol.

    ian cormac (72470d)

  24. “Victory” – what other names have you been banned under?

    JD (d48c3b)

  25. Victory, you decry staged townhalls by Bush when Obama has done more staged faux “townhalls” than Bush ever did?

    You really think that a stupid comment like that is going to make you more credible?

    The whining that was done about extraordinarily mild comments from the Bush press secretary compared to this is just astonishing. And you give us that pathetic attempt at a squirrel call?

    SPQR (26be8b)

  26. What has Israel done that is violent and kills children? And no killing a nutjob who purposely ran in front of their bulldozers doesn’t count.

    DohBiden (15aa57)


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