Julie with a B

Saturday, February 26, 2005
 
The "De-certification" of the press
Like it or not, part of the American "check and balance" system has always been a free press. There is more than one way of short-circuiting the press. PressThink has a thoughtful discussion of what is happening to us. This is a warning about an administration that sets up carefully choreographed appearances before a closed circuit of "press" and "people". The questions are "which press?" and "which people?"

"Before the certification of "Jeff Gannon" as a White House reporter there was the Bush Administration's de-certification move against the Washington press. These two things are deeply related."
"In this view, there is no such thing as journalism; there is only raw politics. According to Media Matters, Gannon said on a Webcast radio show January 27th that the White House press corps "deserves to be gone around because they're not telling the truth about Social Security reform." "The key word is deserves. An illegitimate press demands not only national scorn but practical replacement. It is in this sense that "Jeff Gannon" deserved his press pass, Armstrong Williams deserved his $240,000, and Ketchum public relations deserved $97 million of taxpayer money to help the Bush Administration communicate the message."

"In the press room of the White House that thinks itself post-press, many of the people who have been de-certified still show up for their jobs each day, expecting some kind of briefing, as if they were, still, the Fourth Estate, as if they yet had some role in national politics. It probably galls the Administration that the ritual with real journalists has to go on, since "they don’t represent the public any more than other people do."

- posted by JulieB @ 10:35 AM
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