Posted on 04/29/2011 8:01:49 AM PDT by SmithL
The White House threatened Thursday to exclude The San Francisco Chronicle from pooled coverage of its events in the Bay Area after the paper posted a video of a protest at a San Francisco fundraiser for President Obama last week, Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee said.White House guidelines governing press coverage of such events are too restrictive, Bushee said, and the newspaper was within its rights to film the protest and post the video.
The White House press office would not speak on the record about the issue.
Chronicle senior political reporter Carla Marinucci was invited by the White House to cover the Obama fundraiser on April 21 on the condition that she send her written report to the White House to distribute to other reporters who did not attend. Such "pool reports" are routinely used for press coverage at White House events that are not open to the entire press corps.
About 200 donors paying $5,000 to $38,500 each attended the event at the St. Regis Hotel in the city, a day after Obama visited Facebook headquarters in Silicon Valley touting the proliferation of "new media" breaking the confines of traditional journalism.
At the St. Regis event, a group of protesters who paid collectively $76,000 to attend the fundraiser interrupted Obama with a song complaining about the administration's treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the soldier who allegedly leaked U.S. classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.
As part of a "print-only pool," Marinucci was limited by White House guidelines to provide a print-only report, but Marinucci also took a video of the protest, which she posted in her written story on the online edition of The Chronicle at SFGate.com and on its politics blog after she sent her written pool report.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Interesting. Does the Chronicle leas one way or the other?
It’s not nice to mess with Hugo Chavez Obama.
So, now, will the Chronicle knuckle under and be a good, compliant mouthpiece, crawling to lick its master’s hand like a beaten cur, or will it get up on its hind legs and do the job the “free” press is supposed to do?
Tyrants and dictators always do these things. Obama is going public with the news that he has joined that group.
Didn’t Obama at one time try to ban Fox News reporters from the White House, or from covering events?
Now they want to tell the Chronicle how to report news?
This is dangerous territory for anyone concerned about freedom of the press and freedom of speech. The White House does not have the right to determine how the media is going to report, or what specifically they will report. I know that the White House wants to show Obama in the best light, as any politicos try to do. But this attempt to censor what is being reported carries that way too far.
Does the Chronicle lean one way or the other? Uh.... this is San Francisco; whaddya think?
Does "San Francisco" give you a clue?
THAT was an incredibly stupid thing to do for this WH.
This time around, Obama and his staff need the good will from the media more than the other way around.
Just in case those guys haven’t figure the truth out, Obama is no longer the ‘light worker’.
I appeal to anyone in the MSMedia that has even the slightest love for this great country: please, expose this man for the fraud he is....
Yep, that was the op-ed in the paper, and now they actually have a real article on it.
That’s what I figured. Man, the white house is really touchy.
The story shouldn’t be about the WH threatening to lock the SFC out of the press room. It’s obama’s WH, he can allow any news organization through he doors he wants.
The story here should be what the response is from the SFC specifically, and the media in general. Will they roll over, as they have for the past 4 years since Obama the Campaigner started his path towards US destruction, or will they reach down somewhere they haven’t been for quite some time and find the journalistic ethics they misplaced?
I’m waiting for someone to state the paper is protected by the first amendment. I got news for someone...read it.
“Congress shall make no law abridging etc etc etc.”
Did anyone notice the words “Executive Branch” also written? Didn’t think so.
(Sad sarcasm) After all, the framers of the constitution seemed to have deliberately OMITTED any shackles on either the EXECUTIVE and/or the JUDICIARY. HMMMM.
“Interesting. Does the Chronicle lea(n) one way or the other?”
I quit reading the Chron years ago as its blatant far left bias only raised my blood pressure even further.
The online SFgate occasionally has articles from a more moderate perspective, and Debra Saunders is their token writer who isn’t a Kool Aid drinker, and actually has a brain.
Maybe they’ll update the name to San Venezuela Chronicle?
He’s thin skinned just like every dictator. The common people must be loving and adoring to him at all times.
I can’t believe I’m alive to see this happening in this country.
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