Larry O’Connor
Editorial
The Washington Free Beacon
4/30/2014
Missing from much of the coverage of yesterday’s revelations that Senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes coordinated an effort to obfuscate the truth behind the Sept 11 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi was a key detail about the insidious relationship between politics and media in Washington.
The brother of Ben Rhodes is David Rhodes, president of CBS News.
It isn’t enough for CBS News to mention the relationship as a parenthetical statement as they did in yesterday’s coverage. Larger questions deserve to be answered about the atmosphere and culture at CBS News and how open Rhodes is to any investigations into the Benghazi story and his brother’s involvement…
…These questions are even more relevant in light of Sharyl Attkisson’s recent departure from CBS News and her assertions that she was considered a “troublemaker” for continuing to pursue the unanswered questions about the terror attacks and the White House’s efforts to misdirect the American people…
The complete article is at The Washington Free Beacon.
Related: Sharyl Attkisson: Press freedom under Obama Administration will be seen as a ‘historic time of restrictions’ (video)
…“For a couple weeks, I didn’t cover this story. I wasn’t originally assigned, and I was brought in. CBS asked me to look into it. I think it was about three weeks in when it looked like there was some more information to uncover,” she said. “And just the stonewalling of basic information that should be publicly available such as the commander-in-chief’s action on a night when basically people were at war with Americans and that we were under threat in many places in the region. We don’t even know what the commander-in-chief did that night. We’re not allowed to do know and I think that’s pretty shocking.”
As Attkisson explained, she views the Administration’s stonewalling as a relatively effective strategy because it allowed President Obama to make it through election season unscathed. Furthermore, the more time that passes after an event, the more likely it is that the news media and the American people lose interest…
…“I can tell you from the standpoint of press freedoms and reporting, I think this will be seen as a historic time of restrictions,” she concluded, “and a time in which we not just lost but voluntarily relinquished a lot of our duty and authority as watchdogs of the government.”…
I can only imagine the MSM’s response to this if it was a Republican president…
…Longtime CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller estimates that he’s sent out some 77,000 tweets over the past five years and has received just a few “rockets from Carney.”…