We Had to Pass the Treaty to Find Out What Was In It

“Multiple news outlets held off on reporting the news of secret talks between the United States and Iran,” according to the Huffington Post:

Paul Colford, director of media relations for the AP, told The Huffington Post that the wire service had sought “the kind of confirmation that we obviously received over the weekend” before publishing its story.

“We had to meet our own standards,” AP Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee told HuffPost.

Al-Monitor wrote that it had learned of the secret diplomacy earlier in November, but had “agreed to hold the story at the administration’s request until the conclusion of the third round of nuclear talks that ended here in a breakthrough tonight.”

Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen tweeted that the AP had also agreed to hold the story until a deal was reached, something reporters from the AP did not confirm.

Holding a story at the request of government is, of course, nothing new.

Particularly when it involves the current administration, which the media happily greased the skids to put in place, by holding off on stories and pretending to be mystified by Obama’s worldview. And then there’s this administration’s namesake law. Or as tech writer Bruce Webster notes today:

The media for the past three years has failed to do its job as independent and skeptical investigative journalists with regards to Obamacare in general and the essential technology infrastructure in particular — not just the Healthcare.gov website itself but all the back-end systems and the state exchanges as well. Even when Healthcare.gov launched, most media outlets dutifully reported the problems as mere “glitches” and echoed the Obama Administration’s (false) statements that these problems were merely due to the website’s overwhelming popularity and that all would be well soon. A few intrepid reporters — such as Sheryl Attkisson at CBS News — felt the problems were deeper and kept digging, but most mainstream news outlets did not.

Now, however, the dam is collapsing. The true depth of problems with the ACA tech infrastructure is coming out, thanks largely to the Republicans in Congress fulfilling their  oversight role, obtaining and releasing documents. This, in turn, has started the Great Finger Pointing of who is to blame for what will likely be the most public and visible US information technology failure to date, and all parties involved have turned to the media to air grievances and get out in front of the blame.

And while poetry readings on behalf of Obamacare have apparently stopped at CBS, they’re still eager to do the administration’s bidding whenever possible:

Charlie Rose and Norah O’Donnell stayed true to form and badgered a Republican/conservative guest on Monday’s CBS This Morning – this time, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor over his criticism of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Our own Roger L. Simon writes, “Iran Will Not Have an Atomic Bomb. Period:”

So we have left it all to Israel and, incredible as it may seem, Saudi Arabia to put a stop to this madness. What will they do? I wouldn’t want to be them. It’s no fun at all Perhaps a new prayer should be added to the Jewish liturgy. “Thank G-d I wasn’t born Benjamin Netanyahu.”

I hope Mr. Obama, who promised us “peace in our time” at the start of his second term enjoys whatever modest uptick, if any, Sunday’s development brings to his poll numbers — I doubt many in the Middle East will.

(Via SDA.)