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red states rule
04-29-2011, 04:51 PM
Seems the White House has given up on that "transparency" thing





Upon taking office in early 2009, President Obama pledged to lead one of the most transparent administrations in history. Events in San Francisco earlier this week put that pledge to the test, and the White House didn't exactly pass with flying colors


While attending a fundraiser in San Francisco last week, mere hours after taking part in an online townhall meeting in conjunction with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the President was confronted by a group of hecklers protesting the administration's treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning who has been implicated in the leaking of classified documents to the WikiLeaks. While covering the event from the "print only" press pool, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci began filming the mini-scrum of a protest with the camera on her smartphone. This did not go over well.


According to the Chronicle, "As part of a ‘print-only pool,' Marinucci was limited by White House guidelines to provide a print-only report," but upon filing her story on the Chronicle's website Marinucci provided a link to the video she had shot on her phone, ostensibly a violation of the pool rules. The White House Correspondents Association's guidelines allow print reporters to "snap pictures or take videos" as long as they provide a print report to the pool.


Shortly after posting the video on the newspaper's site, Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee received word from the White House press office that if the offending video was not removed from circulation the Chronicle would be banned from pool coverage of any future Bay Area events featuring the President. Bushee has since refused to remove the video, and takes the White House to task for their handling of the matter.

"If something more serious had happened, would you still observe the rules?" Bushee asked. "We expect our reporters to use the reporting tools they have to cover the news, and Carla did." Bushee went on to say the administration's policy "is objectionable and just is not in sync with how reporters are doing their jobs these days."

"God forbid if the president was attacked, would you just let citizen journalists record the event?" Marinucci asked. "This is not 1987. There is no such thing as pure print anymore, and you're basically telling us we cannot record news when it happens and citizen journalists can."


http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_news/archive/2011/04/29/white-house-threatens-to-cut-off-newspaper-for-protest-report.aspx

Kathianne
04-29-2011, 06:03 PM
Seems the White House has given up on that "transparency" thing

The Chronicle was the one that caved. Shame on them. No doubt, they never would have the brass ones to print a Mohamed cartoon.