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Post by webrunner on Mar 19, 2009 21:38:25 GMT -7
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Post by webrunner on Mar 19, 2009 21:43:54 GMT -7
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Post by webrunner on Mar 19, 2009 21:53:20 GMT -7
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rosa
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Post by rosa on Jul 4, 2009 6:56:47 GMT -7
well, I had to look a little but I remembered this thread was out there and I thought: "Hey! This article can go right here!" ;D This is out of that crazy leftie rag The Nation, and admittedly, one of my first cheeky thoughts was: eh, they're just a bit miffed they didn't think of it first
of course then I had to realize, this is and has been the "American way" for as long as I've known...." Washington: Even More Corrupt Than You Thought! Christopher Hayes 07/02/2009 @ 09:56am The corrupting influence of monied interests is so established by now, such a dog-bites-man story that it can be hard to find novel and compelling ways to retell it. But luckily for us chroniclers of same the sheer depth, breath and audacity of the corruption continues to grow at such a pace that tracking its outer edges makes for good (but depressing) copy. Today's latest installment, which has the internet a twitter is the revelation that the Washington Post has set itself up a kind of influence broker for corporate lobbyists, arranging off-the-record dinners with key White House policy makers which lobbyists can attend for the low low price of $25,000. Mike Allen of Politico has the (very good) scoop: For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" -- Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff." The offer -- which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters -- is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival. And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices. So far most of the criticism has focused (rightly) on the Washington Post, but what I want to know is: who at the White House was planning to attend and were they aware that this was a high-priced lobbying session? If so, shouldn't there be repercussions for allowing access to them to be sold?
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Post by Tim Collins on Jul 4, 2009 7:28:18 GMT -7
OK I have read a couple of news stories about this "event" by the Washington Times. I still don't get it. Was the money paid going to be revenue for the Times? Was that what it was all about?
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Post by webrunner on Jul 4, 2009 9:24:08 GMT -7
What are you having trouble with, Snil? Understanding the "event" itself or why it's such a "scandal" (for lack of a better word). Here's a question nobody's asking. How is a newspaper able to guarantee such access to key Obama personel? Shouldn't the press and the Obama admin. be separate entities? Why is the Obama admin. helping a newspaper raise money? And people actually fight me when I say the press is in Obama's pocket.
BTW Rosa. You said that this has always been done? That's just not true. In that article I posted earlier, Helen Thomas said that not even the Nixon administration attempted control over the press as this admin has done.
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Post by webrunner on Jul 4, 2009 9:31:19 GMT -7
BTW, in keeping with the origins of this thread, just yesterday on that "other forum" someone attributed Sarah Palin with saying that she can see Russia from her house.
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Post by Tim Collins on Jul 4, 2009 10:30:20 GMT -7
What are you having trouble with, Snil? Understanding the "event" itself or why it's such a "scandal" (for lack of a better word). Here's a question nobody's asking. How is a newspaper able to guarantee such access to key Obama personel? Shouldn't the press and the Obama admin. be separate entities? Why is the Obama admin. helping a newspaper raise money? And people actually fight me when I say the press is in Obama's pocket. BTW Rosa. You said that this has always been done? That's just not true. In that article I posted earlier, Helen Thomas said that not even the Nixon administration attempted control over the press as this admin has done. No I think this smells to high heavens. My question is more about who gets the money and why? If it benefits The Washingtom Times that is one problem. One hell of a new "business" model that will lead to high bidder access to politicians and policy makers If the featured "guests" benefit personally, that is another problem and probably a criminal act. I jus do not understand how ANY of the players in this nonsense did not see the problem right away
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Post by webrunner on Jul 4, 2009 11:34:18 GMT -7
Snil, by all accounts so far it seems it's the paper that benefitted financially. I don't know about those key Obama personnel.
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rosa
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Post by rosa on Jul 4, 2009 12:57:14 GMT -7
I seriously doubt this is "new", and I don't care what Helon Thomas or any other journalist wants to delude themselves into believing--whether it was via tacit or quiet "contributions" or through out and out efforts such as these.....and I can think of times (although no specific examples at present-it's a holiday ) during which this kind of behavior was suspected in each administration whether democrat or republican admit it-our media ain't free....Web, I'm kind of surprised given that you think the media is so inherently liberal and biased Thomas' example of the Nixon administration's hold on the media is rank--the whole reason "Deep Throat" came to be was because the admin's reach was a threat. But you look back and you think: what a pack of dummies, they should've just charged the quid-pro like the Post, played w/the veneer of "free press" and there'd have been no scandal and to my memory, Thomas has always been fairly consistent in holding each administration to task for their double-speak and the efforts to keep the media in line....so, again, her example just plain stinks. Heck, Clinton alone kept her in the pink
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Post by webrunner on Jul 4, 2009 15:09:42 GMT -7
Why Rosa, this wouldn't be a case of selective credibility would it? ;D If Thomas had made the same claim but about the Bush admin would you have been more likely to believe her?
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rosa
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Post by rosa on Jul 5, 2009 6:56:21 GMT -7
Why Rosa, this wouldn't be a case of selective credibility would it? ;D If Thomas had made the same claim but about the Bush admin would you have been more likely to believe her? I claim no "credibility"-selective or otherwise, Web ;D What I am saying is that Thomas was on every administration about this and related issues, and I don't "believe" any one journalist or publication-that's why I read a bunch of them when I can you don't think I'd buy into the silly notion that the Nixon administration did little to control the press; she wants to say that this administration is pulling stunts that are worse? Heck what about all of the natsy details in the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Saint Kennedy before him? You know, all those things they knew then but we know only now? Come on Web....Thomas was around then too--don't let her fool you into thinking that the immediacy of our technology, the leniency of our contemporary values hasn't got anything to do with it tsk tsk...shame on you Web, you know me better than that
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Post by webrunner on Jul 5, 2009 8:23:22 GMT -7
Dang it, Rosa. The one time a member of the press (that isn't Fox) criticizes Obama's administration and I can't get you to believe her. Did you see the vid I posted of the exchange between her and Robert Gibbs?
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rosa
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Post by rosa on Jul 6, 2009 4:39:36 GMT -7
Yes, and I loved it. Vintage Thomas...but Web ya have to remember, I've been one of her fans for years.....she's great at what she does, the beauty of her getting old is that she's go more license now to do it than when she used to catch such grief for doing it.....
and there's LOTS of media types criticizing the Obama admin, you just won't read them.....;D
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Post by Tim Collins on Jul 6, 2009 4:42:46 GMT -7
The only thing I dislike about her is the sense of entitlement/all-seeingness that she projects soley on her longevity in the White House Press. Really I have heard her interviewed and she is calcified in her opinions. Not really a great newsperson if you ask me
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