smirk's de-certification move against the Washington press

[donsu]

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/02/25/wht_prss.html

In the Press Room of the White House that is Post Press

Before the certification of "Jeff Gannon" as a White House reporter there was the Bush Administration's de-certification move against the Washington press. These two things are deeply related.


The little Secret Service agent at the National Constitution Center seems more interested in John Ashcroft's tight USA Patriot Act spin-tour schedule than any constitutional rights when he stops me from following a flock of television reporters heading for a brief presser with the man who could not even beat a corpse.

That's Howard Altman of Philadelphia's City Paper (Aug. 28, 2003) describing the experience of trying to cover Attorney General John Ashcroft during his speaking tour on behalf of the Patriot Act.
As the flock disappears down a hall in a hurried scurry, the bespectacled woman in the black dress who could have been Ainsley, the perky Republican from The West Wing, looks at me and waxes apologetic. "I am sorry," she says as the last of the camera crews whiz by. "But he is not talking to print. Only talking to television."

That was when I first became aware that the Bush Administration was putting an end to business-as-usual between the executive and the press. Ashcroft had Secret Service agents, or others in his employ, bar newspaper reporters--including of course those at the big national dailies--from press opportunities as he traveled the country arguing for the Patriot Act.

-snip-

Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock says her boss, with few exceptions, is only granting short interviews to local TV stations as a way of “explaining key facts directly to the American people and not having as much of a filter from people who are already invested in having a different view of it.”

Ashcroft's person tells us the story right there. She says it is legitimate to exclude the traditional press, and deny it the role of questioner on behalf of the public, because a.) this group has forfeited all claim to legitimacy by being so invested in a "different view;" and b.) the Attorney General is perfectly capable of explaining the key facts to the American people himself, with the kind assistance of local television stations (she did not say "reporters") who know enough not to filter the message.
-snip-
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well, they have told us, time and again, that they make the reality, so tough on us.

[Skidmore]

1. The press are getting what they deserve. They refused to

ask the tough questions when it counted and lobbed softballs and gave wet kisses instead. I don't feel sorry for these guys.