Wash Post publishes exposé on minders at inaugural ball (now with link)

[Newsjock]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46409-2005Jan29.html

By Paul Farhi
(c) 2005, The Washington Post

... But now the art of press handling has evolved into actual manhandling. The Bush administration has expanded the use of “minders,” government employees or volunteers who escort journalists from interview to interview within a venue or at a newsworthy event.

... Several reporters covering the balls were surprised to find themselves being monitored Soviet-style by young “escorts” who followed them from hors d’oeuvres table to dance floor and even to the bathroom.

... As I was dictating from my notes, something flashed across my face and neatly snatched my cell phone from of my hand. I looked up to confront a middle-aged woman, her faced afire with rage. “You ignored the rules, and I’m throwing you out!” she barked, snapping my phone shut. “You told that girl you didn’t need an escort. That’s a lie! You’re out of here!”

... No, the minders weren’t there to monitor me. They were there to let the guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political observation, would be noted.

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Here is the discussion thread that preceded publication of this article.

[WCGreen]

1. Welcome to the Gulag comrade

[aquart]

2. I love it.

They can't even trust their donors.

[ClintonTyree]

3. I was hoping that it would finally................

pass from rumor to ink on paper. I thought perhaps the story would get censored and it would never see the light of day. We know how well the bush administration controls the MSM.
I'm hoping that there is a backlash brewing in the MSM, that they've had enough of this horrible cabal's strangle hold on the media. I'm hoping.
I'm also hoping that the people in this country are waking up to the fact that we are all being played like a fiddle by men that do not have the best interests of our country in mind. I'm hoping.
I'd like the MSM to get things so embroiled in the White House that they're incapable of governing and further destroying the fabric of our great country.

[xchrom]

5. msm=bushco=corporate oligarchy.

if there's any real reporting done on scandals like this -- it will be at the behest of the powers behind the throne.
oh and some independant journalists -- with the news circulated among folk like us.

[w13rd0]

4. That's incredibly creepy...

...how could these "small-government conservatives" even begin to accept this kind of draconian bullshit. Saddam's minders had the same purpose. Does no one note the friggin IRONY?!?!

[maddezmom]

6. kick