MSM openly turns programming over to Obama

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STATE-RUN MEDIA
ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE

Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET


On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!

Highlights on the agenda:

ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.

The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.

MORE

Late Monday night, Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay fired off a complaint to the head of ABCNEWS:

Dear Mr. Westin:

As the national debate on health care reform intensifies, I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC's astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24, 2009. Next Wednesday, ABC News will air a primetime health care reform “town hall” at the White House with President Barack Obama. In addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news “will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.” This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president’s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.

Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party's views to those of the President's to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected. I believe that the President should have the ability to speak directly to the America people. However, I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party's opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.

In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.

Respectfully,
Ken McKay
Republican National Committee
Chief of Staff

[Malsua]

Fellate the most powerful man in the world and the fruits will be grand and the chains will lay lightly.

[Beetle]

I am free to change the channel or throw another bullet riddle TV out my back door. (I saw that on a tag on another site and thought it was funny).

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White House Leaning on Its Press Office, Not the Media, to Get Message Out

FOXNews.com



The White House press office is behaving more and more like an independent media outlet, bypassing traditional news avenues in favor of releasing its own "exclusive" video, voicing administration opinions on its official blog and blasting out updates via Twitter.


Press Secretary Robert Gibbs briefs reporters at the White House May 11. (AP Photo)

The White House press office is behaving more and more like an independent media outlet, bypassing traditional news avenues in favor of releasing its own "exclusive" video, voicing administration opinions on its official blog and blasting out updates via Twitter.

The trend has raised questions among the press corps about whether the administration is looking to just tap its own resources to make major announcements. President Obama leans more on internal media as he continues to criticize the "24/7" media environment -- singling out cable news, radio and blogs for occasional lectures -- and appears to be abandoning the prime-time press conference forum he used to discuss major developments during his first few months in office.

"They're doing a very adept job of using new media in the White House," said Pete Snyder, CEO of New Media Strategies. "Whether it's from the constant updates of information at the White House website to ... bypassing the mainstream news media in answering questions and thoughts via Twitter to their use of the photo-sharing site Flickr, really to show the softer side, the more human side, of the administration."

But the White House says the office is just trying to get information out as directly and efficiently as possible.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs used his new Twitter account on Tuesday to distribute an Associated Press article reporting the Minerals Management Service would be split into two agencies -- and seemingly confirm the news at the same time. He used the same account to break the news in March that Obama would be delaying his trip to Indonesia and Australia to work on the health care bill. Asked how heavily his Twitter account would factor into the news cycle, Gibbs bemoaned technical difficulties with his White House e-mail account and said: "I would say Twitter is a quick medium to get information out and we'll probably use it more often."

The technologically adroit administration has gone far beyond Twitter in promoting its activities and establishing its own self-sufficient media arm. The administration started its roll-out of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan with an internally produced video and interview posted to the White House blog. Bereft of hard questions, the video showed Kagan talking about her parents and growing up in New York City. She said in the video that she hopes people will see that she is open-minded, fair, has good judgment and "will faithfully apply the law."

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday suggested on air that the White House was "crossing a number of lines here."

Asked on Tuesday whether the rest of the press might get a crack at a one-on-one interview with the nominee, Gibbs replied: "She's not told me that, no."

The White House even labeled its content as "exclusive footage" when it posted video of first lady Michelle Obama visiting Haiti to survey the earthquake damage last month. The documentary-style video showed footage of the first lady flying over the devastation and scenes from the ground and included a voiceover by Obama.

Meanwhile, Obama has not held a full-blown solo press conference since last July, when he convened the press corps at the White House to discuss health care.

He held a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday at which two questions from the U.S. press and two questions from the Afghan press were allowed. He also came to the back of Air Force One last month to talk to the media, and he made an appearance at the daily White House briefing in February.

Earlier this month Gibbs ridiculed a reporter who complained that none of those constitute a traditional press conference. Gibbs noted that Obama took eight questions at the Nuclear Security Summit on April13.

Asked earlier in the year about the press conference drop-off, Gibbs complained that Obama had previously been accused of being "overexposed."

White House Correspondents' Association President Ed Chen has held a sit-down with Gibbs to plead reporters' case for more exposure.

Comparisons to recent administrations show that Obama, during his first year, opened up to the press in some venues and shied away from the press in others.

Obama had 47 informal, brief question-and-answer sessions with the press corps in the first year of his presidency. By comparison, President George W. Bush had 147 and President Bill Clinton had 252, according to statistics compiled by Towson University professor Martha Joynt Kumar.

Obama held four prime-time press conferences in the East Room, according to Kumar -- an unprecedented number for a president's first year, though he has not held one since.

But in terms of total press conferences, he and Bush paled in comparison to Clinton. In their first years in office, Obama held 27 total press conferences, Bush held 19 and Clinton held 45.

[American Patriot]

The nominee for the SCOTUS has had one interview this week.

With the Propaganda Arm of the White House.

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How not to save news

Bad gov't ideas for journalism

By JEFF JARVIS
Last Updated: 5:06 AM, June 3, 2010

Posted: 12:51 AM, June 3, 2010

Comments: 14

The Federal Trade Commission says it wants to save journalism. I'm not sure who asked it to.

In a just-released "staff discussion draft" of "potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism," the agency only circles its wagons around old newspapers and their fading business models.

If the FTC wants to reinvent journalism, perhaps it should align with news' disruptors. But there's none of that in this report. The word blog is used but once in 35 pages of text--and then only in a parenthetical mention of soccer blogs. Discussion of investing in technology comes on the last page in a suggestion about tools for "improved electronic note-taking."


Part of the solution? Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report certainly doesn't need government help.

I testified before these untechnocrats and told them about my research at CUNY's Graduate School of Journalism into the emerging ecosystem of news. We found profitable hyperlocal bloggers selling $200,000 in ads per year. And we built new, less expensive business models for news (at newsinnovation.com). But that's not mentioned, either.

Instead, the FTC staff declares defeat in the search for business models so it may explore many government interventions, including:

* Expanding copyright law and restricting the doctrine of fair comment to benefit legacy publishers.

* Granting antitrust exemptions to allow publishers to collude on pricing to consumers and to business partners.

* Giving news organizations tax exemptions.

* Subsidizing news organizations by increasing government funding to public broadcasting; establishing an AmeriCorps to pay reporters; giving news companies tax credits for employing journalists; creating a national fund for local news, and giving the press an increased postal subsidy.

To its credit, the FTC does ask how to pay for all this. So the staffers speculated about what I'll dub the iPad tax -- a 5 percent surcharge on consumer electronics to raise $4 billion for news. They also consider a tax on broadcast spectrum and even on advertising.

Most dangerous of all, the FTC considers a doctrine of "proprietary facts," as if anyone should gain the right to restrict the flow of information just as the information is opening it up. Copyright law protects the presentation of news but no one owns facts -- and if anyone did, you could be forbidden from sharing them. How does that serve free speech?

The FTC's one suggestion I can salute is more government transparency -- making agencies release information in standard formats, enabling us all to become watchdogs. But that's about responsible government, not saving journalism.

The good news in all this is that the FTC's bureaucrats try hard to recommend little. They just discuss. And much of what the agency staff ponders are political impossibilities. If there was grumbling about bailing out General Motors, imagine the hailstorm about raising taxes to save newspapers.

The report quotes my testimony to the FTC, where I said I'm "optimistic to a fault about the future of news and journalism." That's because the barrier to entry into the media business has never been lower -- and that means news can grow.

The government should favor neither incumbents nor newcomers, but rather create a level playing field by helping every American get open, high-speed access to the Internet. That is the gateway to the real future of news and media.

I believe that future is entrepreneurial, not institutional. The industry's institutions have had 15 years since the start of the commercial Web and we've seen how far they can come. What we need now are innovators -- like my entrepreneurial journalism students -- to invent new forms, structures, efficiencies and business models for news.

But those entrepreneurs don't need government help. They need to be
left alone with the assurance they won't be interfered with by the FTC -- or the FCC, which has its own hearings and reports on the future of journalism.

"Get off our lawn," I testified to both agencies in Washington. That didn't make it into the report.

Jeff Jarvis, author of "What Would Google Do?", teaches at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

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Newsweek’s Latest Cover: “Why Are Obama’s Critics So Dumb?”…

Folks will remember Newsweek's Obama worship from 2008. With "Milky Loads" now over at Daily Beast/Newsweek, get ready for an especially long year of attacks from the formerly august newsweekly. (See: "Andrew Sullivan Moving to Daily Beast.")

With the cover story written by . . . drumroll, please . . . Trig Truther Andrew Sullivan!



Honestly, is a “guy” who has spent the last several years obsessing over Sarah Palin’s uterus in any position to call us “dumb”?

I wish I could answer that question but apparently I lack the proper intelligence according to Sully.

HT: American Power