We will use this quote from a Mr. Tom Stoppard as the backbone of our discussion today regarding freedom, democracy, and the continuing decline of an unbiased press in this country. It seems that many people believe that their source of news today is always correct, it is their political opponents’ sources of news that are biased and prejudiced and misleading.
If you are a conservative or Republican, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and others hate your views on life and politics and purposely show you and your opinions in the most negative light possible. If you are a liberal or a Democrat, Fox News, conservative talk radio, and others are the devil themselves and not to be believed.
As a result, we have ended up in a place in our history where reality is tainted by the news or press outlet from which you receive your news. Which is a dangerous place to be since if we all do not have a generally common sense of reality, there is no way that we can come together as a country to fix the major issues of our reality today. A favorite quote of mine goes as follows: “There is only one reality, it is just that everyone has a different perception of reality, that is the problem.” And the skewed reporting of our current news outlets makes those perceptions ever wider apart.
Growing up I do not remember such a disconnect across different sources of where you got your news and information from. Walter Cronkite was not much different in presenting facts and realities than Huntley and Brinkley. News and facts were just that, facts. On Sunday morning news shows there were differing viewpoints debated but you knew that was the case. Today, it seems that every day is a Sunday morning news show as different views and opinions are advanced under the disguise of just presenting the facts.
Consider some recent events that prove my point. It seems we have allowed the free “press” in this country to take sides and when the press in a democracy takes sides, truth and reality take a back seat to politics:
1) Consider some facts from a Washington Post article from June 13, 2013:
- ABC News President Ben Sherwood is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a top national-security adviser to President Obama.
- The news director at CBS, David Rhodes is the brother of Benjamin Rhodes, a key foreign-policy specialist in the Obama administration.
- CNN’s deputy Washington bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Tom Nides, who until earlier this year was deputy secretary of state under Hillary Rodham Clinton.
- White House press secretary Jay Carney’s wife is Claire Shipman, a veteran reporter for ABC.
- NPR’s White House correspondent, Ari Shapiro, is married to a lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, who joined the White House counsel’s office in April.
These are not low level political class/press and news organizations connections. These are people working in the White House at high levels who are related to executives and other high level people in the press. The opportunity for conflict of interest is high.
Now, I am not accusing anyone of anything here. But consider the scandalous environment that this administration has created:
- The Benghazi coverup.
- IRS targeting First Amendment rights of American citizens.
- Electronic eavesdropping, Fourth Amendment rights violations, and invasion of privacy by government snooping that would have been unheard of just months ago.
- Spying on members of the press by the current Presidential administration.
- Voting irregularities in the last election.
- Unparalleled cronyism.
- The unfolding of the Obama Care disaster, the worst piece of legislation ever written.
- The addition of over $5 TRILLION to our national debt in just over four years of this administration.
- The failure to write most of the rules and regulations for the Dodd-Frank legislation that was passed three years ago.
- Failure after failure of economic stimulus programs such as Cash For Clunkers.
- Fast and Furious gun running.
- Many, many other failures and scandals.
You get the idea, we are living in an era of unbridled government failure, economic idiocy, the trampling of personal rights, and other major scandals. Woodward and Bernstein would have had a field day if Nixon was doing all of these things.
But there apparently are very few Woodwards and Bernsteins in today’s press. From this buffet of scandals we get nary a peep from most members of the press. Instead, one is left to wonder if the stench of scandal is ignored because at the last family picnic or over dinner at home last night, conflict of interest became a reality. Just a thought.
By the way, for those of you are appalled that I would even suggest that family members in this administration are using family ties to suppress press coverage of the Obama scandals, ask yourself this:
if Obama was a Republican and there were high level family connections between his staff and executives at Fox News, Rush Limbaugh’s show, etc., you would be livid that the press was not doing its job of covering these scandals because of family conflicts. Right?
2) Let’s review another situation that was and is ripe for massive conflict of interest. The Atlantic recently wrote an article in which they identified 21 journalist professionals from the media that left their press industry jobs to work for the Obama administration, a sample of which are listed below:
- Linda Douglass, who was once a spokesperson for Obamacare, was a former Congressional correspondent for CBS and ABC, as well as a writer/editor at National Journal. She was also a traveling press secretary for the Obama campaign.
- Rick Stengell was the former Managing Editor of Time until he became the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the State Department.
- Shailagh Murrau, of the Washington Post, left the Post to join the Obama administration as Vice President Biden’s communications director.
- Warren Bass was once Deputy Editor of the Washington Post’s Outlook section is now a top official in the State Department.
- Geoff Morrell gave up a career in journalism at ABC News to work as a spokesman at the Defense Department.
- The Washington Post’s Stephen Barr left his position as writer of the Federal Diary column to join the Labor Department as a high ranking public affairs official.
- Rosa Brooks was a former Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist who advised Michelle Fluornoy at the Defense Department before becoming a professor at Georgetown.
- Peter Gosselin was an LA Times reporter who became the Chief Speechwriter for former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
- Beverley Lumpkin was a former Justice Department reporter/producer for ABC and CBS and a reporter at the Associated Press. She left journalism to work for the Project on Government Oversight and joined the Department of Justice as a Public Affairs Official
- Rick Weiss was a former Washington Post science reporter who joined the Center for American Progress. He is currently the communications director and senior policy strategist for the White House Office of Science and Technology.
- Anesh Raman was an international/Middle East correspondent at CNN who left to send mass emails for the Obama re-election campaign
- Eric Dash was a New York Times reporter before joining the Treasury Department’s public affairs division.
- MSNBC producer Anthony Reyes left to work for the U.S. Treasury’s public affairs/new media office.
Now, I am not accusing any of these people of slanting their previous news reporting, distorting facts, leaving out facts, etc. to promote this administration’s aims and policies. However, I do find it very interesting that all of the people listed in the article are from what we would call left leaning, Democrat party favoring news outlets: the Washington Post, the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, etc. None of these people come from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity’s shows, conservative blogs, etc.
Again, there is no evidence of actual conflict of interest. However, as we have said many times in this blog in previous posts, the appearance of conflicts of interest are just as bad as actual conflicts of interest and you cannot help but think that there was a quid pro quo on behalf of the left leaning news outlets, their former employees, and this administration, giving the results above.
This ends the first half of our discussion on the hypothesis that today's news outlets' integrity has been replaced by conflict of interests. More to follow tomorrow including the scandalous cover switching of Time magazine.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
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Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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