No White House Silent Treatment for N.Y. Times

[sabra]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-nyt24jul24,1,5201800.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true

No White House Silent Treatment for N.Y. Times
Although the Bush administration has lambasted the paper's Swift banking story, the two have remained on cordial terms.

In the month since the New York Times reported on a secret U.S. program designed to track financial transactions by terrorists, the newspaper has weathered a wave of censure.

The White House deemed the article "offensive" and "disgraceful." Republican lawmakers demanded that Times journalists face espionage charges. Conservative commentators insisted the newspaper's reporters be banned from the White House, or worse.

But even as the recriminations reached maximum volume, business between the Bush administration and the nation's putative "newspaper of record" remained on a remarkably even keel.

Some journalists at the New York Times' Washington bureau protested critics' harsh tone and said they feared administration sources might go silent. But the furor over the Swift banking article did not stop President Bush and his top spokesman from speaking warmly about the Times' White House reporters. It did not lead the administration to eliminate the paper's reports from the batch of press clippings delivered to the media daily. And at least a couple of important administration initiatives still got their first airing in the pages of the New York Times.

[afrosia]

1. So this is the "free press"

...that the world's most democratic nation fights to uphold? What a joke.

[ima_sinnic]

2. as usual the fake outrage over the NYTimes "treason" was nothing

but disinfo intended to divide and befuddle. I notice the rabid dogs over at the-site-that-shall-remain-nameless are still gnawing and yapping over that bone. good doggies! when that one gets stale and splintered there will be a new one.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. It's all just a dance.

Use faux patriotism to whip up the true believers, then use that misguided anger as a cudgel to assure that the generally sympathetic reporters don't stray too far from the "news" that the government wants them to print.

[MrPrax]

4. Why would the

Admin be angry with the NYTimes.

The Times was their cheif propagandist during the build-up to the Iraq war. The NYTimes literally was 'piping' the Rumsfeld's OSP propaganda via Judith Miller.

They are going to need their good will to promote the Iran war because it is important to get 'liberal' certification on the next war -- that's was one of the keys to building support on the Iraq campaign; to build the image of concensus where there isn't any.

If you can tag a 'major liberal newspaper' to your aims, then it makes it much easier to sell the package as liberals will then consider 'other' rationales (peace, stability, democracy, trade as benefits to genocidal war) and the Right's core supporters will be even more boisterous in their support as they figure 'even the liberals' are in favor, so the Prez must be right.

[gratuitous]

5. All those years the Times carried the administration's water

Fearful that they'd be denied their precious, precious access to sources. Yeah, right. Guess what, Times? The administration needs you to help produce the echo chamber just as much as you need "access" inside the administration. They'll piss and whine about your coverage, but when they need to get a story out, they'll give you a call.

The Times didn't need to scrape and grovel before the corrupt Bush administration; they wanted to do it.

[uppityperson]

6. here is a good cartoon about it