Maximum Irony Alert - Bill O'Reilly won't let media in as he gets "Media Courage Award" from RW'ers

[ck4829]

When reporters walked up to the ballroom of the Omni Shoreham Hotel to see Bill O’Reilly’s Friday night speech — he was receiving the “Media Courage Award” — we were told, to our surprise, that no members of the media would be allowed in. Word had leaked out that no non-Fox News cameras would be allowed in, but there had been no indication that no reporters could attend even if they left their recording equipment and notebooks outside.

I was one of about a dozen reporters who huddled outside the room for a few minutes immediately after the speech was supposed to start. Security guards, pictured after the jump, ushered us further and further away from the door–we could hear brief bits of O’Reilly’s speech when the doors would swing open. At around 7:10, we heard a loud clatter and the doors blasted open, as Mike Stark, a Huffington Post liberal blogger, was hauled out by multiple security guards.

“I have a right to be here!” shouted Stark, as he was forced into the stairwell leading outside the hotel. Speaking the next morning, emcee Gil Mertz mocked Stark (not by name) as a “representative from don’tjudgemeasIjudgeyou.org.”

http://washingtonindependent.com/60116/bill-oreilly-bans-the-press-from-his-values-voter-speech

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. "Media Scourge Award " would be more appropriate.

[mwb970]

2. Same old same old.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia Bans Media From 'Free Speech' Event
(CommonDreams.org, March 19, 2003)

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has banned broadcast media from an appearance Wednesday where he will receive an award for supporting free speech.

The ban "begs disbelief and seems to be in conflict with the award itself," C-SPAN vice president and executive producer Terry Murphy wrote in a letter last week to the City Club of Cleveland, which is presenting the honor. "How free is speech if there are limits to its distribution?"

The City Club, which regularly hosts appearances by public figures, selected Scalia for its Citadel of Free Speech Award because he has "consistently, across the board, had opinions or led the charge in support of free speech," said James Foster, executive director.

The club usually tapes speakers for later broadcast on public television station WVIZ. But Scalia insisted on banning television and radio coverage as a condition of his appearance. "I might wish it were otherwise, but that was one of the criteria that he had for acceptance," Foster said.