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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    OBAMA CRACKDOWN ON PRESS FREEDOM ESCALATES

    OBAMA CRACKDOWN ON PRESS FREEDOM ESCALATES



    by BEN SHAPIRO 20 Feb 2014 1767 POST A COMMENT
    Last week, Reporters Without Borders dropped America in the World Press Freedom Index 2014 from 33rd to 46th. James Risen of The New York Times rightly explained, “I think 2013 will go down in history as the worst year for press freedom in the United States’ modern history.” And he’s right. The violation of press freedoms has been egregious under this administration, even as the press fetes President Obama as an honest and effective commander-in-chief.

    Selective Access. President Obama has regularly granted special access to reporters who give him preferential coverage. CBS’ Steve Kroft admitted as much after a late-2012 interview with the President during which CBS clipped Obama’s explicit refusal to label Benghazi an act of terror: “(Obama) knows that we’re not going to play ‘gotcha’ with him, that we’re not going to go out of our way to make him look bad or stupid.”
    Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, got special access for a profile of Obama for Vanity Fair – but Obama insisted on redlining his quotes. Lewis explained that “the White House insisted on signing off on the quotes that would appear.” A reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle was threatened for covering an anti-Obama protest. As early as 2008, candidate Obama was kicking dissenters off planes after their outlets endorsed John McCain.
    Targeting Reporters. In May 2013, the Associated Press dropped the bombshell that the Department of Justice had grabbed phone records for its reporters and editors of the course of two months. Records for 20 telephone lines belonging to the AP and reporters for it were seized between April and May of 2012. Those seizures affected over 100 journalists.
    The AP’s President and CEO Gary Pruitt stated, “There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters.” Fox News’ James Rosen was also targeted by the DOJ after running a story about North Korea nuclear development. His State Department visits were tracked and his movements were followed. His parents’ phone records were even grabbed.
    Placing FCC Monitors in Newsrooms. Last week, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai revealed in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that the FCC will be sending employees into media workplaces to monitor how and what stories are chosen. The goal: to “ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters” concerning “the process by which stories are selected.”
    Pai explained, the FCC “plans to ask station managers, news directors, journalists, television anchors and on-air reporters to tell the government about their ‘news philosophy’ and how the station ensures that the community gets critical information.” Reporters will also be asked whether their stories were killed by management in an effort to elicit “specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decision.”
    Refusing to Answer Questions. President Obama held fewer press conferences than any president since Reagan. He held ten less than George W. Bush, 54 less than President Clinton, and 64 less than George H.W. Bush. And during those press conferences, questions were largely scripted and chosen. He held just 107 Q&As with the press during his first term, as compared with 354 by George W. Bush. In fact, Obama considers tough questions “unfair,” as he told Bill O’Reilly during his pre-Super Bowl interview.
    Refusing to Comply With Freedom of Information Act Requests. According to Bloomberg News, Freedom of Information Act compliance under the Obama administration has been abysmal. Bloomberg reported that “19 of 20 federal agencies did not comply within 20 days to a request for travel expenses made under the Freedom of Information Act.” Obama’s record on FOIA requests in his first two years was worse than George W. Bush’s in his last three – an odd pattern, given that administrations tend to tighten up on transparency as time goes on. When Obama was given an award for open government, it was not open to the press.
    Here are Obama’s stats: 38.4% denied in 2009, 37.7% denied in 2010, 35.3% denied in 2011. In his last three years, Bush’s stats were 23.5%, 24%, and 40.6%. In 2009, the Obama administration asked Judicial Watch to praise the administration’s transparency, but then refused to hand over Secret Service logs Judicial Watch requested. The Obama administration has said that documents about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not subject to FOIA.
    The White House Propaganda Machine. The White House infamously put restrictions on journalists taking some videos and photos of the President, but has simultaneously released administration-produced content that is little more than propaganda. In November 2013, news organizations sent the administration a letter protesting the treatment: “As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist's camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the executive branch of government.”
    The Obama administration’s actions, the letter stated, have “a direct and adverse impact on the public's ability to independently monitor and see what its government is doing.” The letter asked news organizations to stop using White House produced photos. The White House banned independent photos of events including a meeting between Obama and black faith leaders and between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and Vice President Joe Biden, as well as a meeting with Hillary Clinton. AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll stated, “are now recorded only by photographers who work directly for the White House, resulting in images that are little more than visual press releases." The White House also prefers to use non-profit group Media Matters to distribute its spin on the news.
    Prosecution of Whistleblowers. The Obama administration is the leakiest administration in history. The IRS leaked information about a conservative 501(c)3’s donors; Joe Biden leaked the identity of the team responsible for killing Bin Laden; the Obama administration leaked information about Israeli national security repeatedly in order to prevent an Israeli strike on Iran, among other major leaks. But when it comes to prosecuting press members for cooperating with whistleblowers, the Obama administration’s use of the Espionage Act has been historically heavyhanded.
    In 2009, the Justice Department initiated an investigation into James Rosen, after which Attorney General Eric Holder lied, “With regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material: that is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of or would think would be wise policy.” Overall, the administration has used the Espionage Actsix times to prosecute whistleblowers. Leonard Downie of The Washington Post wrote in October 2013, “The war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”
    The Obama administration has been curtailing press freedom – but that hasn’t ended the press’ drool-cup worship for their beloved president. Despite occasional flare-ups, the relationship between the Obama White House and its press lackeys remains strong. Which is not only a testament to the tyrannical tendencies of the Obama administration, but to the cowardice of those who cover it.
    Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief ofTruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.


    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-press-freedom
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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    SARAH PALIN BLASTS PRESS: YOU ONLY 'CRY FOUL' WHEN 'OBAMA'S BOOT IS ON YOUR NECK'



    by TONY LEE
    22 Feb 2014

    Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin blasted the mainstream press for only holding President Barack Obama accountable when they are impacted by Obama's overreach and abuses, while not being watchdogs in nearly every other case.


    "Lamestream calls for empathy, even outrage, for a First Amendment violation that's on par with all the abuse we've brought to your attention as Obama stomps on our Constitution," Palin wrote on her Facebook page after the Obama administration's FCC aborted plans to monitor the country's newsrooms. "You've IGNORED us, you've marginalized us, you've left us for 'destroyed.' But when Obama's boot is on YOUR neck you finally wake the h*ll up and cry foul? Good Lord."

    Palin, who resolved before the new year to hold the "lapdog media" more accountable, posted her message on Facebook after the FCC backtracked on Friday and said it would not ask newsrooms to answer questions about how they conduct their news-gathering operations. As Breitbart News reported, Mignon Clyburn, the daughter of Fairness Doctrine proponent Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), has been leading the charge on behalf of the FCC.

    Palin linked to a Breitbart News article about many of the Obama administration's abuses in cracking down on freedom of the press.

    Proving Palin's point, one of the only other times the mainstream press held the Obama administration to account was after revelations that the administration intercepted email and phone messages from mainstream media journalists for national security purposes.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journal...s-on-Your-Neck

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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    FAIRNESS DOCTRINE PROPONENT'S DAUGHTER IN CHARGE OF INVASIVE NEWSROOM QUESTIONNAIRE



    by KERRY PICKET
    21 Feb 2014

    In 2009, when she was still just a nominee for the Federal Communications Commission, Mignon Clyburn, the daughter of Rep. Jim Clyburn, told the Senate Commerce Committee, “The FCC is not in the content business.”

    But just over a year since she was confirmed, the FCC is marching forward with a questionnaire for newsrooms that critics have ripped as invasive – and possibly a shot across the bow in a push to reinstate the Reagan-era fairness doctrine.

    Titled the "Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs," or CIN, the FCC will send researchers to question reporters, editors, and broadcast station owners about their editorial decision-making, among other issues.

    Outcry about the questionnaire has already prompted the FCC to backpeddle. In a Feb. 14letter to Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said the questionnaire is being amended and that the FCC “has no intention of regulating political or other speech of journalists."

    However, the move has spooked freedom of speech advocates.

    “News outlets have the freedom to decide what information Americans need to know. It is not the government’s place to decide what information is ‘critical’ and what is not. That’s why it is inappropriate for a government agency to ask news organizations why they are covering certain stories but not others,” FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a statement to Breitbart News.

    “And that’s why there has been a groundswell of public opposition to the CIN study. The government has no place in the newsroom, and I will oppose any study that involves the FCC entering it," he added.

    Clyburn, whose father is a vocal proponent of the fairness doctrine, will be running the CIN study. Interestingly, a field test of the CIN will be happening in Jim Clyburn’s own home state of South Carolina within the city limits of Columbia.

    Jim Clyburn called for the fairness doctrine in the wake of the 2011 Tuscon, Arizona shooting, which resulted in six dead and 14 seriously injured, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).

    “The shooting is cause for the country to rethink parameters on free speech, Clyburn said from his office, just blocks from the South Carolina Statehouse. He wants standards put in place to guarantee balanced media coverage with a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, in addition to calling on elected officials and media pundits to use "better judgment,” reported The Post and Courier in January of 2011.

    “Free speech is as free speech does,” he said. “You cannot yell ‘fire' in a crowded theater and call it free speech and some of what I hear, and is being called free speech, is worse than that,” Clyburn reportedly said, referencing a remark made by 2010 U.S. senatorial candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada, who commented on political disputes and “Second Amendment remedies.” Clyburn blamed such political discourse for Tuscon shooter Jared Loughner's 2011 rampage.

    “He saw a Second Amendment remedy and that's what occurred here and there is no way not to make that connection,” Clyburn said.
    Former FCC Commissioner, Robert McDowell, who left the agency in May as Clyburn was appointed by Obama to become the agency’s interim chair, told Breitbart News he believes there is an “explicit link” of a political agenda between Clyburn and her Congressman father, “but the link is that the FCC is trying to determine whether broadcast content is valuable to consumers.”

    McDowell added, “There’s no proposal on the table to explicitly regulate content. I think that’s important to note, but at the same time, the FCC does determine whether or not a broadcaster gets to stay in business through the licensing renewal process that happens every eight years."

    President Obama nominated Ms.Clyburn, a former South Carolina utility commissioner and former newspaper publisher, to the FCC in 2009. She told members of the Senate Commerce Committee, during her confirmation hearing, that she opposed the fairness doctrine.
    The younger Clyburn previously served as interim FCC Chair until Commissioner Tom Wheeler was confirmed as Chairman. Wheeler, who inherited the study from Clyburn, ordered the removal of questions about news philosophy and editorial judgment after the outcry on Thursday, reports the Washington Post.

    The offices of both Jim and Mignon did not respond to a request for comment.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-Questionnaire

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