Yesterday we learned that the First Lady will be accompanied by her children and her mother on her latest vacation to China. We also learned that the Obama’s have decided to bar reporters from covering the trip. And it appears that those in the press are not so happy with the Obama’s decision to shut them out! The AP has decided that the time has come to fight back against these actions warning that once their access is cut “we will never get it back.”
So what happened to the transparency that Obama promised when he first took office? The main stream media has swooned over Obama for the past 5 years but the Messiah is feeling the heat, his popularity is plunging and that cozy relationship that he had with the media seems to be fizzling as well. Don’t get me wrong, there are still some in the media that are standing strong and defending his every move. Rachel Maddow, for example, will defend him on her death bed with her very last gasp of air. But not all are standing strong as they aren’t too happy about being shut out now that the tide has turned.
The AP claims that the Obama administration has reneged on their promise of transparency also claiming that Obama’s staff is turning to social media as a way to promote Obama’s agenda. At a convention in Denver this week, two of AP’s White House staffers made the claim that Obama’s team often prevents reporters from covering Obama events because they are “hypersensitive” about his image. I guess that would explain as to why Obama’s team would prefer to post all their cutesy pictures on Twitter and Facebook rather than allow the media to actually cover what really goes on during those events.
AP White House photographer Charles Dharapak said this:
“We don’t fault them for using these methods of social outreach – Just don’t shut the independent press out.”
So not only are reporters being barred from Michelle’s trip to China and important Obama events, but a new time limit came into play yesterday at a White House interview with Obama. A local Arizona CBS affiliate claimed that they were allotted 4 minutes each to interview President Obama. They were told that they had to stand during the interview while a looming aide (creepy) stood behind the President with a countdown clock in his hand making sure that they didn’t exceed their 4 minute limit. However, as they found out during the interview, that 4 minutes included the time that Obama was also allowed to answer.
“We immediately launched into our interview because there was a person standing behind him actually counting down to the four minutes. And by the time he answered my last question, I realized that we had already gone over the four minutes, so that’s why I took an opportunity to sort of ask a lighter question afterward because I figured at that point, you know, why not? I have nothing to lose,” said the local reporter.
The same reporter also made the claim that Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, told her yesterday that:
“a lot of times, unless it’s something breaking, the questions that the reporters actually ask — the correspondents — they are provided to him in advance. So then he knows what he’s going to be answering and sometimes those correspondents and reporters also have those answers printed in front of them, because of course it helps when they’re producing their reports for later on.”
I almost feel sorry for the press. I said almost because this is the same press that helped to get Obama elected.. and then reelected. These were the ones who brought us the “chill” or the “thrill” running up or down their leg. This was their guy, the first Black President that would make the planet heal and the oceans rise. This was their Messiah and would be the ONE that would bring us world peace and improve our relations abroad. This is the same press that if they did their job, Obama would not be standing at his teleprompter today. With everything going on around the world and right here at home, the press is being forced to do their job. The situation with Putin, Lois “I plea the 5th” Lerner and the IRS scandal, new information surfacing from Benghazi, Snowden leaking info on the NSA spying and the nightmares of Obamacare can no longer be shoved under a rug. Besides, this is an election year and the recent Florida election spells trouble for the Dems. Now that the MSM is eager to report on this, Obama is either limiting them on what they can report, or is shutting them out altogether. They are not invited to China and they can report on an event after they read it on Facebook or Twitter.
As for the press, it is true that Karma eventually catches you. When everything was good, they were allowed to cover it. The bad news, not so much. And as much as we enjoy seeing the Karma bus roll up, we must not forget the danger that these actions impose. What precedent does this set? Freedom of the press against government interference and the right for the press to be a watchdog over the government is not something we can afford to lose. It is true that once we lose access to what is happening in our government, that we will never get it back. But it’s even more pathetic that we had to get to this point in order for the media to realize that.
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