History Rhymes at the San Francisco Chronicle
As Bryan Preston writes at the PJ Tatler, they told me if I voted for John McCain, “we would soon see the government quash new media reporting to control the message…and they were right!”
Bryan links to a post from the blog of Phil Bronstein, the San Francisco Chronicle’s editor at large , who seems genuinely shocked to discover that the “Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia”:
White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.
The Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci – who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times – pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel. …
Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was “informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter.” Which shouldn’t be a secret in any case because it’s a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate)and how local citizens get their information.
What’s worse: more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla’s spanking became public. Really? That’s a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free.
You don’t say.
In a way, this is a case of history rhyming at the Chronicle. In 2007 through early 2008, Obama was in the midst of staking out his turf as being further to the left of Hillary Clinton. (After the primaries, he would later feint somewhat to the right by the fall of 2008, until his fateful meeting with a certain man in the plumbing trade.) As a result, at the start of 2008, the hard-core anti-war, LGBT, environmental activists swooned over Obama. You know the “professional left,” as Robert Gibbs cynically dubbed them last year, in perhaps the only memorable soundbite in his career? That was them. This was also the period in which young Ezra Klein, in-between setting up the JournoList and then being hired by the Washington Post (what could go wrong?), memorably said:
Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I’ve heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence.
The leader of candidate Obama’s self-described “non-official campaign” in the media was heating up his base’s collective temperature during the cold winter of 2008. But that was also the period that Obama felt free to tell the San Fransisco Chronicle that he’d cheerfully bankrupt coal companies, and not-coincidentally, “energy costs would necessarily skyrocket”:
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
Yeah, that’s what the majority of Americans who aren’t ideologically on the far left and particularly those who live in more climatically volatile regions than the San Francisco Bay Area and who live from paycheck to paycheck want to hear from a presidential candidate.
As I’ve written before, a savvier newspaper — one that wanted to sell some papers, as opposed to being either (a) asleep at the wheel, (b) wanting to promote a favored candidate above all else or (c) both — would have had someone say immediately at the conclusion of the interview, “Well, thank you for your time, Senator,” shaken his hand and walked him to the front door.
They would have then immediately put the president’s quote on the front page in type so big it would make the New York Post blush, and then sent out links to Matt Drudge and every wire service about the awesome quote they just tripped over.
All if have to say is what a bunch of suckers! The Chron is one of the worst liberal rags in America. It isn’t even worth reading the sports page anymore!
Awwww, how quaint! The girl under the bleachers comes to school on Monday only to find the quarterback hardly remembers her name . . .
This is another one of those “People … getting …Gov’t … deserve … stories. Since I got banned from commenting on the SfGate website for telling them they weren’t a real newspaper (repeatedly) all I have to say is…….Karma.
They do not have to vote Republican. All they have to do is start acting like reporters. Rip into him. The only reason he is in power, is because the Media makes it possible, whitewashing his record. They should own him, not the other way around. They should show him who is boss.
You would think that the Press would defend their 1st Amendment rights. You would be wrong. They do not believe in rights. They believe in power. If they ever tried real reportage, they would discover what real power is. They love using it against Repubs, but just imagine how much they would enjoy the power rush of using it against the Dems. The Repubs can get by without the Press. The Dems cannot.
But, when you act like someone’s b****, expect them to treat you like their b****.
Indeed, and the SEIU and the New Black Panther Party would be happy to show them.
In the Automakers bailouts the Obama Admiistration used threats to take money that legally belonged to bondholders. It then gave that money to its political supporters, the UAW. There is nothing elevating about Obama. He is a thug, who is destroying an economic and legal system that made America wealthy. And the media is worse than useless.
The term is aiding and abetting.
You mean that Obama in 2008 was nothing but a public relations front man aided and abetted by the main stream media? Say it ain’t so! Obama was and still is nothing but a far-left socialist. The main stream media cheerfully covered that up just to prevent McCain from coming into office and to finally have one of “them” in the White House. Well, gang, this is what you got. Now choke on it.
Remember, Lenin also had great ways of “handling” the press. And he, too, wasn’t too happy when the press crossed him (if they dared). So those same people who cheerfully supported Obama in 2008 are “disinchanted” with him today? Well boo hoo. How about doing something about it? How about actually reporting the news rather than making it up to support a left-wing candidate? But I doubt that will happen. If they did, they would have to admit that they were wrong all along. And they would never do that. Not even if it was for the good of the country. The rats.
“The only way a reporter should look at a politician is down.”
– H.L. Mencken
Heh. We might not be in the mess we’re in if we had more “reporters” left. Unfortunately, mostly we have “journalists” (or “journolists”) and the only way they look at Obama and other knee-jerk leftist politicians is UP, the same way Monica looked at Bill from under the desk. And doing the same thing.
…” the only way they look at Obama and other knee-jerk leftist politicians is UP, the same way Monica looked at Bill from under the desk. And doing the same thing.”
Not quite. President Clinton, after all, was facing forward.
Does anyone else find Ezra Klein’s choice of words suggestive ?
With Obamaniacs, it is all about the glitter,
rather than ‘a shining city upon a hill’.
Instead we get a ****y fitty from the shill.
The media’s love affair with this President continues, but this is a classic case of spousal abuse. The overbearing, bullying husband slaps around the little woman when she steps out of line. The little woman, in turn, blames herself and tries harder to please her abuser. We all wait for someone with common sense, honor and courage to intervene on behalf of the abuse victim. Sometimes it works and the victim quits making excuses and makes a choice to leave the relationship. Sometimes the victim makes a conscious decision to endure the abuse…..it’s love, you know. We’ll see how smart and courageous the media is in due time.
Two years of a blank slate, and they are finally realizing that it really is blank. It doesn’t matter what you saw in the guy, there is nothing there.
The lap may be getting a little uncomfortable these days but the dogs aren’t leaving.
If I were going to compare administrations, I’d say Obama’s is less like Carter’s than it is Richard Nixon’s, only without the break-ins and the competence.
“If I were going to compare administrations, I’d say Obama’s is less like Carter’s than it is Richard Nixon’s, only without the break-ins and the competence.”
I agree. And have been noticing how much he reminds me of President Nixon for about a year. And, actually, I only considered Nixon competent in a few things (break-ins not included). His domestic policy was mostly disastrous, his foreign policy was a bit better. Which pretty much describes my opinion of President Obama.
(Odd note – your spell checker takes Nixon but doesn’t like Obama.)
There’s one word for governments that punish reporters for reporting on what actually happened: authoritarian. It’s one thing to kick helen Thomas out for being an anti-Semite, but banishing a reporter who reported that there were a few protesters at one of your events? I don’t recall Reagan or W. ever doing something like that.
Guess Obama handlers would like to forestall a repeat embarrassment of the “bitter clingers” remarks caught on tape.
Too late.
Those idiots paid something like $76,000 to get into the event and sing “We paid our dues, where’s our change?”
Obama’s immediate reaction is to comment on how their singing voices are better than his own ?
You have entered the twilight zone.
When i read the Ezra klein love letter I threw up in my mouth a little.Idol worship has never really appealed to me. Why does it appeal so well to the leftards?
What’s ironic is Bronstein describing Marinucci as a “reporter.” Her front page “news” reports, (nothing more than op-eds saturated with liberal Kool-Aid), are a major reason why I became Ex-subscriber.
I guess Obama has metaphorically just taken a baseball bat to the head of a reporter at the meeting : and he’s now wondering who is next. Sorta like Capone in the good old days.
All of this is quite ironic, as the press hated the Clintons. So they gave Bush a pass on many fronts, to disrespect Gore. In their minds Gore was linked to Clintons, and they didn’t want that again. Then they hated Bush, and we have Obama. (Fourth Estate as Fifth Column.)
Here is another Obama administration video they likely don’t want voters to see again, Rahm Emanuel not wasting a crisis, specifically with regard to ending America’s addiction to “cheap oil”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk
I’m surprised the President didn’t do a Charley Sheen at the Bradley protesters and shout “I’ve already got your money chumps!”
Privately I’m sure he did.
Is it true it cost the American taxpayers as much to float Obama out to the West Coast as money he raised? That’s a good redistribution plan I guess.
That’s like the Spanish paying pirates to raid their gold ships.
If Obama wore an eye patch that’d be real transparency.
This won’t make me popular, but here we go: the Chron is very left-wing, but I’ve found them intellectually honest about it. They criticize the Dems for not being liberal enough, not like Olbermann who simply parrots whatever will get the Dems elected. And unlike the LA Times, the SF Chron has never 1) endorsed a left-wing Holocaust denier over a sitting Republican, 2) Photo-shopped a front-page picture to make it look like the opposite of what really happened, or 3) Withheld a video of Obama at a fundraiser with Muslim activists (we’ve only seen the famous photo of the Obamas and the Saids). And unlike the Oakland Tribune, the SF Chron does a decent job of separating their news from opinion, though it does cover stories that reinforce a leftist worldview.
As far as the Obama video on coal, as well as the “bitter clingers” comment, I also have to defend the Chron: these points of view are so common in SF that I can understand some editor not thinking that they’re particularly newsworthy.
Greetings:
Some don’t call it the San Francisco Comicle for nothing. But then again, Phil Bronstein, its illustrious previously Sharon Stone wed editor, didn’t think a Komodo Dragon would bite him either.
He mispoke in that 2008 interview.
He meant to say that unemployment would skyrocket and the country would necessarilly go bankrupt.
I made the mistake of reading Ezra Klein’s sycophantic wet dream while eating. HOW CAN THESE IDIOTS THINK THEY’RE THE SMART ONES?? They’re too stupid to know they’re stupid. Gotta make another run for the bathroom…
it’s an example of the mental affliction cursing the elites
FATAL CONCEIT
“Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.”
When I hear this kind of hero-worship, I always envision the raptured faces of the German people I’ve seen in documentaries, especially the children, listening to the rantings of one Adolph Hitler. What is it with the lefties?
Ezra Klein (WaPo) is the moron who, a few months back, said that the United States Constitution was “over 100 years old” and nobody understands it.
Idiot lights should flash at the mere mention of his name.
Why did it take so long and now, all of a sudden, show up?
Obama birth certificate deconstructed.
Check it out-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s9StxsFllY&feature=share
Was Ezra Klein listening to the same man I was during that campaign? The President is NOT a good speaker and his content was nothing but smoke and mirrors. The people certainly didn’t need two disastrous years to learn this. It was apparent to anyone with a brain during his appearances on the hustings. He could easily turn even a good speech (of which there were few) into a bore. Mr. Klein is just another of the royal flacks to be ignored.
This just shows how stupid the voters were in electing Obama. this was no mistake the voters were not lied to. Obama during his campaign said alot of what he wanted to do. Some things were subtle (like not placing his hand over his heart), but other times he point blank stated his goals. these people simply did not want to listen. they were too buzy admonishing people for being racist and so desparate to stick it to Bush. There is NO WAY IN HELL, if you were actually paying attention, with an open mind you could not have known what he was wanting. The media LOVED obama because of what he represented, which is ‘elites controlling the narrative and the people’. side media like PJ media, and even the liberal ones are at least better because A. they state their beliefs in the beginning, and B. they are reporting events that regular media would never do. Thats why obama cant control the narrative. at least not yet. dont think for a sec he is not working on that.
what i don’t understand is where are all the happy obummer supporters at the gas stations? one probably democratic fellow next to me was actually cursing little ‘o’ under his breath yesterday. isn’t el prezidente doing exactly what he said was necessary for amerika to be the country you all wanted? didn’t he say gas and energy (and other) prices would necessarily skyrocket if he were elected?
what was that song from the late 70′s?
‘sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight’!
so, obummer got over 50% of the vote, and almost all the black vote, right?
O. K. – then next time i’m in the gas statin getting screwed, like everybody else, i expect to see some smilin’ democratic faces. you wanted this, and here it is, more to come.
just act like it is your ‘afternoon delight’. maybe that will help.
And this is all a surprise?
It’s like saying there’s a shooter in the White house. (Obama)
He’s shooting our ability to procure proven energy (oil drilling), He’s shooting holes in our constitution, He’s shooting the lights out on our economy, He’s shooting the reporters who dare to ask a question that he dislikes, And the only pushback is by a few people trying to find out if he has a permit (or maybe a birth certificate?) for the gun he’s killing our country with.
Really?