Slashdot Mirror
Journalists Route Around White House Press Office
Tailhook writes Pool reports written by White House correspondents are distributed to news organizations via the White House Press Office. Reporters have alleged that the Obama White House exploits its role as distributor to "demand changes in pool reports" and has used this power to "steer coverage in a more favorable direction." Now a group of 90 print journalists has begun privately distributing their work through Google Groups, independent of the Press Office. Their intent is to "create an independent pool-reporting system for print and online recipients."
What did they imagine the White House Press Office was for? It's always been the tool that the White House uses to get whatever information it wants the press to report on out to reporters. It's not a service to the press to tell them everything THEY want to know about the government. Never has been. If they're not getting out the information that THEY want to report on, whose job is that?
If we had a more independent, and aggressive, investigative news agencies out there, Obama and other politicians (both parties) would not get away with half the shit they do.
I think the news agencies should, in general, always view the administration at the time as somewhat adversarial, and should always be on the look for errors, law breaking and any hint of wrong doing. That should be their jobs, to constantly being on the heels of those in power, and keep them on their toes.
When you lose true news investigation and reporting, you lose democracy....the free press is needed to keep the administration honest, and just parroting news feeds from whatever administration is in office does the country absolutely NO service, and can in fact, allow very bad things to happen to the country as a whole as well as to erode and harm citizens on a more personal level.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........