John
Verum Serum
2/15/2011
ABC has a piece today that offers some concern from professors of journalism that the Obama White House has gone further than any administration in memory toward creating a kind of state run media:
The White House Press Office now not only produces a website, blog, YouTube channel, Flickr photo stream, and Facebook and Twitter profiles, but also a mix of daily video programming, including live coverage of the president’s appearances and news-like shows that highlight his accomplishments…
Over the past few months, as White House cameras have been granted free reign behind the scenes, officials have blocked broadcast news outlets from events traditionally open to coverage and limited opportunities to publicly question the president himself.
In essence the White House is creating pool reports with itself as the pool reporter.
“The administration has narrowed access by the mainstream media to an unprecedented extent,” said ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton, who has covered seven administrations. “Access here has shriveled.”…
…Click over to read the full article and you’ll get to the part where journalism professor David Perlmutter compares the White House operation to Communist Russian state media. It’s a good piece but it’s missing some critical context…
…“state run media 2.0″ (to use Perlmutter’s term) has been the considered strategy of Obama’s team since before his election because it allows them not to bypass the press but to control it. But I don’t recall them being too upset about that back in 2008, do you?
Read the entire article, with video of Maoist Anita Dunn, at Verum Serum.
Update: At Legal Insurrection, Pravda: US Edition?
