|
Bush interferes with the media?
|
View this Thread in Original format
| trancaholic |
I'm a little surprised that no one seems to have posted this yet. From Editor & Publisher
| quote: | Bush Pressed Papers to Kill Scoops on Spying, Prisons
NEW YORK President George W. Bush and senior administration officials have met with top editors of The New York Times and The Washington Post in recent months to try to dissuade the papers from publishing what the administration considers to be articles harmful to its prosecution of the war on terror.
The administration's efforts ultimately failed, although sensitive details likely were removed from the articles that eventually ran. The latest revelations show just how serious the Bush White House views the media's reporting on its anti-terror tactics, and how it would prefer to conduct much of the war on terror in secret.
In his Media Notes column today, Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz wrote that Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., met with White House officials on multiple occasions to discuss the paper's Nov. 2 article by Dana Priest disclosing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe where terrorism suspects are interrogated.
"When senior administration officials raised national security questions about details in Dana's story during her reporting, at their request we met with them on more than one occasion," Downie told Kurtz. "The meetings were off the record for the purpose of discussing national security issues in her story."
Kurtz could not get Downie to confirm the meeting with Bush, but Kurtz' sources told him that at least one of the meetings involved John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, and CIA Director Porter Goss.
Priest's article set off widespread criticism of the CIA's interrogation methods. Shortly after publication, the House Intelligence Committee launched an investigation into who leaked the information, while the CIA asked the Justice Department to review possible sources.
Earlier, on Dec. 19, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter reported that Bush had summoned Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and Executive Editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office on Dec. 6 to try to dissuade them from publishing their domestic spying story. The Times had already sat on the story for nearly a year, a delay the paper has yet to fully explain.
"The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny," the newspaper reported in its Dec. 15 spying scoop.
But Alter concluded that because the Bush administration could not point to any specific details in the Times story that would compromise national security, the real reason "Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story" was "because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker." |
Some president you've got there.:eyespop: |
|
|
| St_Andrew |
I think I commented on this in some other thread, but for some weird reason most Americans (which are generally very pro-free speech) don't see this as an issue :conf:
To me this is much more serious than for example "the plame leak" |
|
|
| josh4 |
Well it says they tried to "dissuade" the papers, not tried to censor or force the papers not to run the stories.
Trying to change the minds of the media on reporting sensitive information isnt completely new. During the Bay of Pigs JFK got Orvil Dryfoos, a publisher for the new york times to hold a story about the operation. |
|
|
| Lepanto |
As Josh said, there have been instances in the past. JFK called the paper personally to hold the news from being published. Amongst others was watergate, which was to be settled privately within the government officials, but we all know it didn't work out like that.
What I find funny about this news is that some people claim that government controls the media and others claim the media controls the governemt while, still, others claim that they hate and fight each other. Lol. |
|
|
| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
I think I commented on this in some other thread, but for some weird reason most Americans (which are generally very pro-free speech) don't see this as an issue :conf:
|
Apparently you're right.
I do acknowledge that the article says "dissuade", but what worries me is
1) that Bush knows about the articles prior to their publication
2) that he believes that there's a good chance that he *can* dissuade the papers from running stories.
That other presidents have done the same doesn't comfort me. |
|
|
| pkcRAISTLIN |
| nah, of course the administration would know about the stories. newspaper is examining X, they pose questions to the white house about X. nothing sinister there ;) |
|
|
| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
Apparently you're right.
I do acknowledge that the article says "dissuade", but what worries me is
1) that Bush knows about the articles prior to their publication
2) that he believes that there's a good chance that he *can* dissuade the papers from running stories.
That other presidents have done the same doesn't comfort me. |
Plus uno. |
|
|
| Fir3start3r |
A polital leader with media influence?!
You don't say... |
|
|
| Trancer-X |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
A polital leader with media influence?!
You don't say... |
It's time to bring back the muckrakers!
http://www.muckraker.org/
:p |
|
|
| Fir3start3r |
Interesting site TX...
I'll have to keep this one...thx ;) |
|
|
| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fir3start3r
Interesting site TX...
I'll have to keep this one...thx ;) |
Why the hell are you two getting along these days?!?!?! What is the world coming to! :whip: :p
(joking) ;) |
|
|
| Trancer-X |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Why the hell are you two getting along these days?!?!?! What is the world coming to! :whip: :p
|
Well, it is a little weird, but such is life.
:toothless |
|
|
|
|
