-By Warner Todd Huston
When you’re a liberal and you’ve lost the talking heads on MSNBC, you know you’re in trouble and here we see left-wing Barack Obama being called the worst President in US history for his antagonistic attitude about freedom of the press.
MSNBC invited former CNN reporter Bob Franken onto the November 30 broadcast of MSNBC Live to talk about the Obama administration, but he wasn’t as complimentary as most MSNBCers are. Franken disparaged the administration as indulging in propaganda because they continue to use their own photographers and their own “writers” in certain instances, eschewing the real press and denying them access.
In fact, Franken said that this administration has been bad for freedom of the press and the most “hostile” to the media in US history.
“The reason I say most hostile is because of the Justice Department moves that they’ve made against the press,” Franken said. “Obviously, they have a contempt for the journalistic process.”
With the Obama administration using the iron boot of the Department of Justice to prosecute journalists more than any recent administration, it isn’t hard to understand where Franken is coming from,
You may recall the AP scandal earlier in the year when Attny Gen. Holder obtained the personal phone records of a hundred AP reporters.
Here is a transcript of the conversation:
MSNBC HOST T.J. HOLMES,: Bob, you covered the White House for a long time. You’ve been around, and you were shaking your head there the whole time and wanting to chime in. What is it?
BOB FRANKEN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, let’s use the “P” word here. This is propaganda when it comes from the White House: government covering the government. It’s not what you’re supposed to do in the United States of America. But we have an administration, every president gets to the point where he dislikes the press. It’s that simple. And every administration tries to manipulate the press. But this is the most hostile to the media that has been in United States history. Not only do we have this thing where they’re…
HOLMES: Wait, you would go that far?
FRANKEN: I would go that far.
HOLMES: The most hostile in history?
FRANKEN: The most hostile because first of all, we have the situation where they are in fact shutting out the press. And by the way, when they say you can’t have every photographer in, they know full-well that there’s a thing called a pool, which is to say you have one representative from each of the media that represents all of them and shares the pictures and the sound and all that kind of thing. So that’s totally disingenuous, which is a polite word.
But the reason I say most hostile is because of the Justice Department moves that they’ve made against the press. Obviously they have a contempt for the journalistic process. Those of us who are in journalism, of course, believe that it is vital if you’re going to have informed electorate as opposed to one that’s been propagandized.
Wow. That was spot on and unusually harsh for a talking head on MSNBC, wasn’t it? Tell us what you think?
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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, MrConservative.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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