The Obama media

 

Every now and then something slips through, only to be picked up later.  This is true of a story that popped up a week ago in the New York Times.

 

It is absolutely stunning. 

 

The real question is why isn’t the drive by media raising hell about this?

 

From the New York Times:

 

The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative.

                         

 

They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under one major condition: the press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name.

Most reporters, desperate to pick the brains of the president’s top strategists, grudgingly agree. After the interviews, they review their notes, check their tape recorders and send in the juiciest sound bites for review.

The verdict from the campaign — an operation that prides itself on staying consistently on script — is often no, Barack Obama does not approve this message.

The push and pull over what is on the record is one of journalism’s perennial battles. But those negotiations typically took place case by case, free from the red pens of press minders. Now, with a millisecond Twitter news cycle and an unforgiving, gaffe-obsessed media culture, politicians and their advisers are routinely demanding that reporters allow them final editing power over any published quotations.

Quote approval is standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all midlevel aides in Chicago and at the White House — almost anyone other than spokesmen who are paid to be quoted. (And sometimes it applies even to them.) It is also commonplace throughout Washington and on the campaign trail.

 

Huh?

 

The adversarial press has become the lap dog press.  In fairness, the Romney campaign also imposes pre-publication review on some of interviews, particularly with Romney’s sons.

 

Why does the media even tolerate this?

 

A generation ago, it would not have happened.

 

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I worked in radio.  I worked with some old time radio and print news reporters.  Every now and then a local or even a state politician would insist on trying to craft their own coverage. 

 

The response by these reporters was colorful to say the least.  My father was a career Air Force Sargeant who taught me many creative, unique and very obscene ways to express my displeasure.  I heard things from them that I had never heard when politicians tried to control the stories. 

 

After that, look out.  Every story about that politician became a negative story.  The politician could have been named citizen of the year and saved a baby cat from a burning house and the coverage would be so negative everyone would still hate the guy.

 

What happened?

 

All of those old guys are gone. 

 

Today the drive by media is just an outlet of the establishment. 

 

Today they simply roll over. 

 

Will the establishment news media ever do their job again?

 

Probably not.  But like the dinosaurs, the drive by media is facing extinction and when people ask why the old line media died, the answer will be obvious.