-By Warner Todd Huston
Earlier today it was reported that several Fox News reporters were targeted by the Department of Justice over interaction with an employee(s) at the State Department. In the investigation, Fox News’ James Rosen was fingered by the DOJ not as just a reporter getting “classified” information, but an “aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator.” This is such a shocking charge that even The New Yorker has come to Rosen’s support.
The focus on Rosen was reported in the Washington Post on May 20 with the paper wondering if the Obama administration’s goal was to intimidate reporters. The Post also said the investigation went nearly to the point of criminalizing standard news-gathering.
For The New Yorker, this is all quite chilling.
Noting that Rosen hasn’t been charged with any crime yet, New Yorker goes on to say that the DOJ’s actions are shocking.
“It is unprecedented for the government, in an official court document, to accuse a reporter of breaking the law for conducting the routine business of reporting on government secrets,” Ryan Lizza writes.
John Nolte noted earlier, this is all having the intended “chilling effect” on journalists.
As Nolte notes, the outcome of targeting journalists will be that the media will only report what the government tells it to report. It will end up being state controlled media not just by sympathy, but by direct control.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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