CSMonitor: Bush administration blurs media boundary

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0217/p01s01-uspo.html

Bush administration blurs media boundary

Controversy over a 'journalist' adds to the buzz about message control in capital.

By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – First came video "news releases" produced by the Bush administration using a TV news format. Then came three conservative columnists who got big paychecks from federal agencies. Now, there's Jeff Gannon (not his real name), a journalist (maybe) who gained surprisingly easy access to the president, only to lob a sympathetically slanted question.

No evidence has surfaced that Mr. Gannon was directed by the White House, but the circumstances ignited a debate over the inner workings of the White House press room.

....

The classic presidential tack for managing the news is to shut off access to journalists. Deeply frustrated by the coverage of the Watergate scandal, President Nixon directed his staff to ban any representative from the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, Newsweek, CBS, and a UPI reporter from the press pool - an order his staff largely ignored. But during the 2004 campaign, a New York Times reporter assigned to cover Vice President Cheney was routinely excluded from the press plane.

....

"There is a pattern of propaganda by the Bush administration that must be stopped," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.

<</SNIP>>

[blm]

1. Knight-Ridder was also not allowed near Cheney because they reported

the CIA agents' charge that the WH was cooking the intel books on Iraq.

This is a great article. Please send it to your local papers.

[sabra]

2. Agree, not a bad job at all by CSM....

[diamond14]

3. OMG....bush* PR Budget went from $39 million to $88.2 million last year

That's OUR tax money, used for bush* propaganda.....what is this, the Soviet Union?, Cuba?....

[demgrrrll]

4. I am imagining Karl Rove running around trying to stamp out all of these

little brush fires before they become a roaring blaze. hmmm.

[troubleinwinter]

6. A few years ago, all the kids in high school

wanted to be "journalists". Now they all want to "go into PR".

[diamond14]

7. $ 49.2 MILLION more for bush* propaganda...what insanity ! while cutting

school budgets, and leaving children behind all over America....

$ 49.2 MILLION would pay for a LOT of TEACHERS....

[blm]

8. our tax money used for Bush's election propaganda. Last year was ALL about

Bush's campaign and hold on power.

[troubleinwinter]

5. Good article... The Christian Science Monitor is HIGHLY respected.

[blm]

9. I recommended this so more can see it.

I hope others will do the same.

[blm]

10. Kick for real jourmalism

.

[Technowitch]

11. 'Blurs'? Hardly. Erased it entirely.