Must Read PressThink on Cheney, Peppergate and the media. MUST READ!

[BurtWorm]

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/02/16/chn_ftz.html

Dick Cheney Did Not Make a Mistake By Not Telling the Press He Shot a Guy

Among the angry, amused and jaded reactions to Dick Cheney’s methods for informing the nation about his hunting accident, the views of Marlin Fitzwater were of special interest to me. Fitzwater—former press secretary to both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, a loyal Republican—knows how things used to work.

He was livid. “It is all Cheney,” he told Editor & Publisher. “He is the key that has to start all this.” Fitzwater explained what is supposed to happen. The Vice President’s press secretary acts as a kind of journalist within the Cheney camp.

“What he should have done was call his press secretary and tell her what happened and she then would have gotten a hold of the doctor and asked him what happened. Then interview Katharine Armstrong to get her side of events and then put out a statement to inform the public.

“They could have done all of that in about two hours on Saturday. It is beyond me why it was not done this way.”

Well, it’s not beyond me. The way I look at it, Cheney took the opportunity to show the White House press corps that it is not the natural conduit to the nation-at-large; and it has no special place in the information chain. Cheney does not grant legitimacy to the large news organizations with brand names who think of themselves as proxies for the public and its right to know. Nor does he think the press should know where he is, what he’s doing, or who he’s doing it with....

“This is going to ricochet for days,” Kurtz said on Tuesday. The title of his column that day: Monumental Misfire. I’m not sure that’s right, either.

How does it hurt Bush if for three days this week reporters are pummeling Scott McClellan over the details of when they were informed about Cheney’s hunting accident? That’s three days this week they won’t be pummeling Scott McClellan over the details of this article from Foreign Affairs by Paul R. Pillar, the ex-CIA man who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year.

[OzarkDem]

1. Will the news media ever get a clue?

Also from the article:

And at the same time expanding the reach of his office. “In the past five years, Mr. Cheney has grown accustomed to having a power center of his own, with his own miniature version of a national security council staff,” writes Sanger. “President Bush has allowed Cheney to become perhaps the most powerful vice president in history and has provided him with unparalleled autonomy,” say Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker in the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, the reclamation of powers lost to the executive branch after Vietnam and Watergate goes on; Cheney is known to be the driver. When this project reaches the press it turns into what I have called rollback— “Back ‘em up, starve ‘em down, and drive up their negatives.” Cheney’s methods after the hunting accident were classics in rollback thinking.

...

The people yelling questions at Scott McClellan in the briefing room, like the reporters in the Washington bureaus who cover the president, are in Cheney’s calculations neither a necessary evil, nor a public good. They are an unnecessary evil and a public bad— ex-influentials who can be disrespected without penalty.





When will they stop getting duped by the Bush and the GOP? Are they really that naive or do they know what's going on and play along with the game?

:shrug:

[BurtWorm]

2. This article depressed the shit out of me

Nevertheless, I think he's on to something essential in the rotten state of things in America under Bushism.

[OzarkDem]

5. Like this

When he questions the political editor of the WaPo about Bush WH pushing out the old rules of journalism..

"But where, John, is it written that these limits will always be observed? What prevents a new understanding from coming into power in the White House, one that withdraws from the earlier consensus? In fact, there is nothing to prevent it; and I would argue that the Bush forces have done exactly that. They sensed that the old press system was weakened and they changed the game on you. They knew you wouldn’t react because to do so would look “too political.”

Other White Houses had a “line of the day” they wanted to push. None had a spokesman like Scott McClellan who, no matter what the question, will mindlessly repeat the line of the day as a way of showing journalists that they have no rights to an answer. That isn’t “spin,” although it may superficially look like spin. That’s shutting down the podium and emptying out the briefing room without saying you’re doing it."

He's telling the WaPo their power has been completely usurped and they either don't know it or are going along with it.

[BurtWorm]

6. Interesting that Harris backed out of that interview.

Sounds like he's actually done part of it. Incidentally, that interview, I'm guessing, was an extention of the Howell/Froomkin flak. The traditional press is crumbling right before our eyes.

[msgadget]

3. "Cheney does not grant legitimacy to the large news organizations..."

Exactly. I heard Pillar on NPR today, btw, and meant to look up that article so thanks!

[BurtWorm]

4. This post gives a crystal clear insight into Cheney's black heart.

[BurtWorm]

7. kick

[BurtWorm]

8. kick

[BurtWorm]

9. kick

[BurtWorm]

10. I wonder why this thread is being ignored.

Is it something it said? :evilfrown:

[helderheid]

11. k & r burtworm