Dana Priest: Bush Admin has huge effort to intimidate journalists

[sabra]

http://thesouthend.typepad.com/tsenews/2006/11/post_reporter_b.html

<snip>

Priest, who Sedler said would “forever be known as the ‘secret prisons’ reporter,” won a Pulitzer Prize in April. She pointed out that her articles called for congressional investigations — “some thought I should be sent to jail as a traitor.”

Priest said the secret prisons in Eastern Europe were created to keep access to U.S. courts from suspects. Naming specific countries, especially those “doing counter-terrorism things that were productive,” would put them in danger of being targeted by terrorists, she said.

The articles were criticized for having no value and undermining the war on terror, she said.
In the Bush administration, “there is a huge effort to intimidate the media,” Priest said.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Anyone heard from Andrew Card's cousin?

The one who was put in jail because she had information that contradicted Bush's conclusion to proceed with a war on Iraq?

There's a pattern.

[sakabatou]

2. Well duh

Of course the Bush Admin hates reporters... Except Faux. They love Faux.

[gratuitous]

3. Journalists themselves could end the intimidation

But the days of the ink-stained wretch, the guy with a facility for words who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, are gone forever. Now our media corps are drawn from the same powdered, perfumed and pompadoured class as the elites they report on. And just as they never talk to or even notice the servants, they know the rules of the game, the basis for access, and the standing of all the participants. If reporters wanted to end the administration's intimidation, they could do it tomorrow simply by publishing the truth.

But they don't want the intimidation to end. It gives them an excuse. It gives them an out. Oh, you don't understand, hoi polloi. The pressures of high-level journalism and reporting on the most elite government circles is a world unto itself, where access, the all-important access, is so prized and so paramount, that nothing can infringe on it, or even risk its infringement. We must have access to war-mongers, the corrupt, the petty thieves, the insanely jealous, and the paranoid because to call them what they are would compromise our ability to talk to them. Yes, billions of dollars are wasted, hundreds of thousands of lives are squandered, but does that truly compare to having access? The balance has been weighed, and the public means nothing.

[Clark2008]

4. You need to qualify that because MOST reporters don't make

as much as teachers - which is why the good ones leave. They have to "put food on their families" somehow.

[elehhhhna]

7. The unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks on certain media figures probably had an effect.

[plcdude]

5. excellent

points made and well written. thanks

[The Count]

6. Bravo! Standing ovation!

:thumbsup:

[BlooInBloo]

8. Looks like we need another conference on blogger ethics, eh?

[lala_rawraw]

9. that is not remotely

accurate. to claim that journalists "don't want the intimidation to end" is incredibly shallow. the journalists who are intimidated are the ones who get you your news, not the ones who get you your lies. so i suggest you reconsider your statement, because you don't know what you are talking about. intimidation of that sort cannot be reported for all sorts of reasons, some of it is being investigated, sometimes reporting it chills the source pool, and so forth. there are all sorts of reasons reporters do not write about the pressure of their work.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

10. I'm reading a book called

"Into the Buzzsaw" that is really scaring the crap out of me. It has numerous stories from journalists who encountered the "Buzzsaw", that is to say, they met the corporate/political machine and had their stories squelched.

When reporters simply parrot government officials, as they do ALL the time now, they are indeed spreading lies. IF they fail to actually investigate the government's story, as they do ALL the time now, they are indeed complicit in spreading lies.

I would never say that ALL journalists have failed at giving us our news, but it sure seems like more journalists are simply "reporting" and not nearly enough are "investigating".

Again, I would highly recommend reading this book. I got it used for like $7.

http://www.amazon.com/Into-Buzzsaw-Leading-Journalists-Expose/dp/1591022304/sr=8-1/qid=1164041713/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3033792-7470542?ie=UTF8&s=books

[Rageneau]

11. I wish we could elect our journalists.

I'd vote for Robert and Sam Parry, Greg Palast, and gold old Helen Thomas. And I'd change the name of the Pulitzer Prize to the Gary Webb Prize.

[petgoat]

12. We do elect them. We vote when we buy newspapers, watch

TV, and read the internets.