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Bush, bloggers both manipulating media

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Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

Posted on Wed, Feb. 23, 2005

Bush, bloggers both manipulating media

Clarence Page

WASHINGTON – If America’s mainstream media really were as liberal as conservatives claim we are, we would be ballyhooing the fiasco of James D. Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon, with Page One banner headlines and hourly bulletins.

Sure, Guckert-gate may seem like a tempest in a teapot, at first. But so did the Whitewater land development deal. Yet, conservative commentators and editorialists, aided by their allies in Congress, rode that Arkansas pony until it ended far afield of a land deal and the impeachment of a president for lying about sex.

Imagine, then, how the conservative choir would sing out at this point if a Democratic White House knocked long-tenured journalists off its press room access lists so that it could give access to a fellow like Guckert, who dependably asks softball questions because he reports for a partisan Web site that supports the administration.

Imagine how they would question the access given by Secret Service and the White House press office for two years to a guy who used a driver’s license that said James Guckert to get into the White House and then switched to his alter ego of Jeff Gannon. The best explanation for this that Bush press secretary Scott McClellan could give to Editor & Publisher magazine was, “People use aliases all the time in life, from journalists to actors.”

Guckert wrote under the name Jeff Gannon for Talon News, a conservative online news outlet associated with another Web site, GOPUSA, a conservative Web site based in Houston and dedicated to “spreading the conservative message throughout America.”

He attracted the attention of liberal “bloggers,” short for Web loggers, when he asked President Bush a squeezably soft question at a news conference in January: How, he asked the president, could he work “with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?” (My answer? “Hey, I’m working with you, am I not?”)

Liberal bloggers also uncovered links between Guckert and gay-oriented Web sites where he apparently advertised his escort services by describing himself as “ ‘military, muscular, masculine and discrete’ (sic),” according to Howard Kurtz, Washington Post media reporter.

But all that’s a titillating sideshow compared with the charges that House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., has presented to the special prosecutor investigating the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA operative to columnist Robert Novak. In 2003 Guckert wrote in Talon News that he had asked Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, about “an internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel” that revealed his wife’s CIA role.

Revealing a CIA agent’s identity is a federal crime. A Time magazine reporter and a New York Times reporter face possible jail sentences for refusing to say who revealed Plame’s CIA role to them in an apparent effort to discredit Wilson’s criticism of the administration’s Iraq war policy. Is the prosecutor putting Guckert’s feet to the fire, too? If not, why not?

Of course, every administration tries to manipulate the media. Team Bush has elevated it to a high art. Before Guckert, there was the disclosure that three conservative syndicated columnists had been paid handsomely to promote administration programs – payment they failed to disclose to their readers.

And remember those prepackaged video news releases featuring fake reporters so local news outlets would be tempted to run them as legitimate news stories, as some did?

We have grown accustomed to those prescreened rent-a-crowd “Ask President Bush” town hall-style meetings during last year’s campaign and during this year’s effort by Bush to promote his proposed Social Security changes.

But I thought the last straw was the unprecedented herding of reporters covering this year’s inaugural balls into pens from which they could only venture to interview ball guests if they were escorted by “minders” in the fashion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Tell me again: What was that war about? Oh, yeah: freedom and democracy. Great. We could use a little more back here at home.

Unfortunately, this administration and its supportive chorus is getting away with less accountability, more secretiveness, partly by demonizing the media. If they succeed in intimidating us from watchdogs into lapdogs, they will have succeeded where previous administrations from both parties have failed.

That’s why, despite the Guckert fiasco, I do not begrudge Web journalists from the right or the left or the squishy middle their access to government press rooms. I want to see more access, not less, granted to a press corps that is as diverse as the people we serve.

More media access means more government accountability. But, when media watchdogs are intimidated into becoming lapdogs, as some wise wit once said, that’s not reporting: That’s just taking dictation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clarence Page is a Chicago Tribune columnist. His e-mail is cpage@tribune.com.

Posted by: Kbob

Not saying I agree or disagree, but the media is manipulating as well.

Posted by: Styles

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kbob

Not saying I agree or disagree, but the media is manipulating as well.

Kbob is right !!!

It is the media not the people blogging... Just reading the editorial that was posted makes me sick what a freaking oxymoron! And Johnny posting it just proves the media is manipulating the people! NOT people manipulating the media!!!! geeeez

Posted by: MonsterMark

Need I mention Dan Rathernot and SeeBS as a prime example of media manipulation.

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonsterMark

Need I mention Dan Rathernot and SeeBS as a prime example of media manipulation.

Don't forget your hero Bill O'Cryley. What a nut case.

Face it, "spin" from the media (in both directions) is nearly un-advoidable. However when the "spin" originates from the white house, using intimidation tactics that would not be tolerated elsewhere, things have gone too damn far. "News" becomes nothing more than propaganda, democracy turns into a dictatorship and "trust" in our CIC deteriorates to nothingness. You'd have to be blind to all these shenanagans to trust the BuSh administration.

DOH! That explains everything!!

Posted by: TownCar97

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

DOH! That explains everything!!

Wow!

What do we have here, another rambling, nutcase Liberal shouting discrimination and suppression. Don't you think that the public would like to hear something new? It would almost seem that you agree with Ward Churchill that nutcase professor who never even finished his masters and got a tenure without having a PhD.

Not only is the media overfilled with liberalism but also the Major institutions accross this nation. The ratings at high profile schools like Harvard and Yale are to the tune of:

102 Liberal Staff to 4 Conservative staff.

It is no joke or figament of the rights imagination, the liberals seem to be everywhere. But the funny thing is, they are not. This last election disproves that the majority of the nation is liberals, there is a constant move to the right and a constant distancing between the views of the media and the american public.

Look at the oscars for God sakes.

Million dollar baby wins everything - A film which glorifies assisted suicide
Monster wins last year - A film which makes you blame society for serial killer

Passion of the Christ - Nothing, was only nominated for minor topics.

There is no doubt in my mind that the media as well as hollywood is totally out of touch with reality.

But, it seems that this reply is in vain, because of the thick skulls of those clueless liberals out there.

Iraqis on average are happy that we did what we did. The elections over there were a sucess, a RESOUNDING SUCCESS. So get over it that the libs lost the majority and get on with your lives.

TownCar97

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

Wow, can't believe I missed this so long.......

Quote:

Originally Posted by TownCar97

Talk about a broken record. Conservatives have been crying this wolf as long as I can remember, and that goes back before Nixon.

Part of the function of a "free press" is to keep information flowing to the people about their government, what they are doing right, AND wrong. When the government takes control of the press, it is simply propaganda, and the operation of the country turns towards communism. The reason that GW is getting so much bad press these days is NOT because the media is "liberal" or "leaning far to the left", it's because there is no shortage of screw-ups coming from the BuSh administration to report about. The EXACT same thing happened during the Clinton administration. The shoe hurts when it's on the other foot, doesn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TownCar97

Iraqis on average are happy that we did what we did. The elections over there were a sucess, a RESOUNDING SUCCESS. So get over it that the libs lost the majority and get on with your lives.

TownCar97

Last report I've read is that the Iraqi people are becoming frustrated w/ the delays getting their "newly, democatically elected government" in place, and they are beginning to question the risks they put them selves through to get out and vote. Violence has not yet subsided over there. Looks like we'll be crossing the 1600 mark for US casualties long before my hopes.

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

Then you've probably also read that the Sunni's who boycotted the election have realized that they made a mistake and now want to be involved in the political process of forming a new government so that they will have representation.

I get frustrated at things as well, but that doesn't mean anything in and of itself. While my glass is 2/3 full, yours is apparently 1/3 empty.

Posted by: JohnnyBz00LS

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kbob

I get frustrated at things as well, but that doesn't mean anything in and of itself. While my glass is 2/3 full, yours is apparently 1/3 empty.

Apparently. I too am saddened by the fact that only 5 weeks ago the glass was 5/6 full, or 1/6 empty, depending on your point of view.

Posted by: Kbob

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

Apparently. I too am saddened by the fact that only 5 weeks ago the glass was 5/6 full, or 1/6 empty, depending on your point of view.

Now I'm frustrated.

j/k

Posted by: MonsterMark

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyBz00LS

Apparently. I too am saddened by the fact that only 5 weeks ago the glass was 5/6 full, or 1/6 empty, depending on your point of view.

That's because Barry is busy sipping your elixir.

Posted by: barry2952

How did I get caught up in this conversation. I hadn't even commented, Bryan.

My opinion is that both sides of the aisle are full of $hit.

Posted by: MonsterMark

Barry, I wasn't trying to get you caught up in the action. I was just trying to make a joke that the reason Johnny's glass is emptying is because you were siphoning some of it. Just a joke to keep things light. I'm sorry if you took it wrong. I never mean to offend. It is just my way of communicating, never taking myself or others too seriously.

Posted by: barry2952

I've been following this thread without commenting because I'm reading a Michael Crichton book called "State of Fear" in which it is postulated that in order to be an orderly society we need to live in a "state of fear".

It goes as far as to say that the "state of fear" is fabricated by government and media to keep us focused on things that come into favor and slowly fade away. Examples were The Cold War, The Viet Nam War, pollution, DDT and now Global Warming.

The book makes a strong argument for disputing the theory of Global Warming. Eco-terrorism is the theme.

Posted by: MonsterMark

I might have agreed with Mr. Crichton 20 years ago, but not now. Nuclear weapons will be portable soon, weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions. That to me, this 'state of fear', is not now applicable, thus the premise of the book is out of date.

Posted by: Joeychgo

How about Car Forums? Are we manipulating as well?

Got a new avatar!

Posted by: MonsterMark

So I see. Go check out my "We're having a Party" thread for the appropriate response.

Man, I am SOOSOOOO glad you are going out of town so I can wreck this place.