New York Times responds to Obama government spying on the press
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD - May 14, 2013
On Friday, Justice Department officials revealed that they had been going through The A.P.’s records for months. The dragnet covered work, home and cellphone records used by almost 100 people at one of the oldest and most reputable news organizations. James Cole, a deputy attorney general, offered no further explanation on Tuesday, saying only that it was part of a “criminal investigation involving highly classified material” from early 2012.
Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said he could not comment on the details of the phone records seizure, which he said was an open investigation — although he was happy to comment on the open investigation into the tax audits of conservative groups, which he said might have been criminal and were “certainly outrageous and unacceptable.”
Both Mr. Holder and Mr. Cole declared their commitment — and that of President Obama — to press freedoms. Mr. Cole said the administration does not “take lightly” such secretive trolling through media records.
We are not convinced.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
hypocrites. From an earlier post
No one was "spying" on the AP, and the media hypocrisy in this entire episode is atrocious.
I mean, there would be hell to pay if this happened under Bush...
"And agents twice improperly gained access to reporters’ calling records as part of leak investigations. "
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022846263
"Improperly" defined as "based on nothing more than e-mail messages or scribbled requests on Post-it notes"
Now they're outraged about records being subpoenaed, a legal action, after demanding that the WH address the leaks.
Why wasn't everyone who is outraged now outraged at the launch of the leak investigation?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022846070
The media don't get a pass
An Open Letter to Gary Pruitt, President and CEO of the Associated Press
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022846938
Oh, this is good: House Republican 2012 hearing demanding DOJ subpoena reporters (video)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022847992
Oh, and stop shilling for Republicans and special interest.
By Rebecca Leber
Major news outlets often mislead readers by failing to report the fossil fuel funding of the conservative think tanks they cite and quote, according to a new study from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Journalists commonly cited eight groups with known oil, gas, and coal funding: The American Enterprise Institute, Americans for Prosperity, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and Institute for Energy Research (and its arm American Energy Alliance).
In total, they were cited 357 times, but outlets identified their funding from the Koch brothers, American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil, or General Motors a mere one-third of the time:
Based on a Nexus search, UCS’s Elliott Negin found the rate of reporting varies widely across outlets: Politico and the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press disclosed funding over 40 percent of the time. The two largest papers in the country, USA Today and Wall Street Journal (owned by Rupert Murdoch), disclosed this information the least. And if Koch Industries succeeds in its bid for the Los Angeles Times, along with seven other major papers, it is possible the average will drop even more.
- more -
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/15/2016501/new-york-times-wall-street-journal-npr-neglect-fossil-fuel-funding-of-climate-denier-talking-points/
Isn't our corporate media special?
Associated Press Laments Tragic Plight Of The Very Wealthy
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022458384
