Bush's Chamber of Secrets: How they'll prove to be his undoing.

[warrens]

By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, May 3, 2006, at 7:21 PM ET


Yesterday, I entertained and then rejected the notion that's popular among many journalists that the Bush administration has declared war on the press. Do the Bushies disrespect the press? Give them the runaround when they ask questions of the White House press office? Has the administration sown disinformation, overclassified, reclassified the previously declassified, tightened FOIA, and paid pundits to carry its water? A million times yes.

Yet stonewalling, investigating the sources of leaks, intimidating reporters with visits from FBI agents, and otherwise making reporters' lives miserable aren't tantamount to a Bush war on the press. Instead of backing the combat metaphor, I subscribe to Jay Rosen's more modest diagnosis of an ongoing administration strategy to "decertify" the press from its role as purveyor of news and information. By attacking the press corps' credibility and legitimacy, the Bush administration expects to frame the national debate—make that "eliminate the national debate."



So, what can journalists do to fight back? A little less whining in the face of tin-horn presidential oppression would seem to be in order.

The best journalists practice judo, using their foes' brute force against them. Every time the Bush administration cracks down on openness, it creates new sources for journalists inside the bureaucracies. Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, says the strategy of decertifying the press works only if you can block the press from obtaining alternative sources of information. That's something the administration hasn't been able to do, says Blanton, citing the blockbuster stories about the Bush's secret prisons, secret torture programs, secret rendition operation, warrantless wiretaps, and so on.

SNIP

http://www.slate.com/id/2140996/

[ShortnFiery]

1. "The best journalists practice judo"

I personally don't care what martial art they figuratively practice, it's time for Our STRACK Press to get off their duffs and begin to report the truth via quality investigative reports. Reports that put this administration CLEARLY and LEGALLY responsible for this tragedy bordering on biblical proportions, i.e., the immoral and illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation.

[peacetalksforall]

2. The Bush attack against journalists is hightly selective. If I draw a

line down the middle of a piece of paper and list those who support PNAC and the barons and perform as primed, coached, and guided on one side and those lone eagles who work for propaganda papers or networks along with the more 'free' jounalists - the proof will stand out.

George and friends are only targeting enemies of PNAC, the PNAC Project, and their sponsoring barons.

FOR Dick-George, PNAC, barons:................NOT FOR Dick=George, PNAC, barons:

(Listing some females first, we have)

Candy Crowley........................................Dana Priest
Judith Miller............................................Katrina Van (sp?)

This is not a war against journalists. It is a war against free journalism.

[warrens]

3. Well, a war against journalism

I doubt you would find many who would classify Judy and Candy (not to mention Steno Sue) as journalists. My way of dealing with this is to rotate all Washington correspondents out of the city every two years. That would shut down the incestuous little cocktail circuit they have going on, where only lapdogs are allowed. And where the "inside story" is dispensed. If you write the story right, you keep getting invited. Write it wrong, and you become the loneliest person in Washington.