OBAMA CRACKS DOWN ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS!

Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia
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The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.

White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

The Chronicle's Carla Marinucci - who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times - pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

She was part of a "print pool" - a limited number of journalists at an event who represent their bigger hoard colleagues - which White House press officials still refer to quaintly as "pen and pad" reporting.

But that's a pretty Flintstones concept of journalism for an administration that presents itself as the Jetsons. Video is every bit a part of any journalist's tool kit these days as a functioning pen that doesn't leak through your pocket.

In fact, Carla and her reporting colleague, Joe Garofoli, founded something called "Shaky Hand Productions" - the semi-pro, sometimes vertiginous use of a Flip or phone camera by Hearst reporters to catch more impromptu or urgent moments during last year's California gubernatorial race that might otherwise be missed by TV.

The name has become its own brand; often politicians even ask if anyone from Shaky Hand will show at their event. For Carla, Joe and reporters at other Hearst newsrooms where Shaky Hand has taken hold, this was an appropriate dive into use of other media by traditional journalists catering to audiences who expect their news delivered in all modes and manners.

That's the world we live in and the President of the United States claims to be one of its biggest advocates.

Just the day before Carla's Stone Age infraction, Mr. Obama was at Facebook seated next to its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and may as well have been wearing an "I'm With Mark" t-shirt for all the mutual admiration going back and forth.

"The main reason we wanted to do this is," Obama said of his appearance, "first of all, because more and more people, especially young people, are getting their information through different media. And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you've got citizens who are informed, who are engaged."

Informed, in other words, through social and other digital media where videos of news are posted.

The President and his staffers deftly used social media like Twitter and Facebook in his election campaign and continue to extol the virtues and value. Except, apparently, when it comes to the press.

So what's up with the White House? We can't say because neither Press Secretary Jay Carney nor anyone from his staff would speak on the record.

Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was "informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter." Which shouldn't be a secret in any case because it's a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate)and how local citizens get their information.

What's worse: more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla's spanking became public. Really? That's a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free.

But bravery is a challenge, in particular for White House correspondents, most of whom are seasoned and capable journalists. They live a little bit in a gilded cage where they have access to the most powerful man in the world but must obey the rules whether they make sense or not.

CBS News reporter, Mark Knoller, has publicly protested the limited press access to Obama fundraisers, calling the policy "inconsistent." "It's no way to do business," wrote Politico's Julie Mason, "especially [for] a candidate who prides himself on transparency."

A 2009 blog by the White House Director of New Media states that "President Obama is committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history."

Not last week.

Mason referred to the San Francisco St. Regis protest as "a highly newsworthy event" where "reporters had to rely on written pool reports..."

Except, thanks to Carla's quick action with her camera, they didn't.

I get that all powerful people and institutions want to control their image and their message. That's part of their job, to create a mythology that allows them to continue being powerful.

But part of the press' job is to do the opposite, to strip away the cloaks and veneers. By banning her, and by not acknowledging how contemporary media works, the White House did not just put Carla in a cage but more like one of those stifling pens reserved for calves on their way to being veal.

Carla cannot do her job to the best of her ability if she can't use all the tools available to her as a journalist. The public still sees the videos posted by protesters and other St. Regis attendees, because the technology is ubiquitous. But the Obama Administration apparently wants to give the distinct advantage to citizen witnesses at the expense of professionals.

Why? Well, they won't tell us.

Some White House reporters are grumbling almost as much as the Administration about Carla's "breaking the rules." I can understand how they'd be irritated. If you didn't get the video because you understood you weren't supposed to, why should someone else get it who isn't following the longstanding civilized table manners?

The White House Press Correspondents' Association pool reporting guidelines warn about "no hoarding" of information and also say, "pool reports must be filed before any online story or blog." While uploading her video probably was the best way to file her report, Carla may have technically busted the letter of that law.

But the guidelines also say, "Print poolers can snap pictures or take video. They are not obliged to share these pictures...but can make them available if they so choose."

Then what guidelines is the White House applying here? Again, we don't know.

What the Administration should have done is to use this incident to precipitate a reasonable conversation about changing their 1950's policies into rules more suited to 2011. Dwight Eisenhower was the last President who let some new media air into the room when he lifted the ban on cameras at press conferences in 1952.

"We've come full circle here," Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Foundation's Project for Excellence in Journalism told me today. "A newspaper reporter is being punished because she took pictures with a moving camera. We live in a world where there are no longer distinctions. The White House is trying to live by 20th century distinctions."

The President's practice not just with transparency but in other dealings with the press has not been tracking his words, despite the cool glamour and easy conversation that makes him seem so much more open than the last guy.

It was his administration that decided to go after New York Times reporter James Risen to get at his source in a book he wrote about the CIA. For us here in SF who went through the BALCO case and other fisticuffs with the George W. Bush Attorney General's prosecutors, this is deja vu.

Late today, there were hints that the White House might be backing off the Carla Fatwa.

Barack Obama sold himself successfully as a fresh wind for the 21st century. In important matters of communication, technology, openness and the press, it's not too late for him to demonstrate that.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?entry_id=87978#ixzz1Kv2EjhRm

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.Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia : Bronstein at Large
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virginia59 6:19 AM on April 29, 2011
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I am going to say this to liberals, conservatives and independents alike - this man is dangerous. We may not agree on everything but I think we all love our country enough that we do not want to see it turned in Russia, Cuba, Venezuela or, God forbid, some muslim nation. In the next election, please let us not look at a person's race or religion, or the 'D' or 'R' behind their name. Little by little our liberties, which we have taken for granted, are disappearing; all under the guise that the government knows what's best for us. WE know what is best for us and clearly this government, this administration is not it.
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surf66 6:17 AM on April 29, 2011
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MAYBE some hypocricy???
MAYBE ???

Maybe you've been taken for a ride !
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Phocus 6:13 AM on April 29, 2011
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Ok, enough of the little man who reads well. We need a real president again. One who is honest, loves America, fails to see skin color, and has had a real job. One who knows he works for us, not the other way around. Time for a Romney, a Guliani, a Christy, a Kain, Rubio or West. Vote for the man with a tried and true background of achievement, not speeches.
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Grayeagle7777 6:10 AM on April 29, 2011
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Control is what liberalism is! "O" thinks he is King Obama - do as I say, not as I do! A free press is the first to go when totalatarians get control. "O" is moving the country toward a "government" controls everything. By constantly covering his butt, the media is playing with fire that is going and burn them too. This case is just an example of what is yet to come!
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expertskier 6:09 AM on April 29, 2011
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"That's part of their job, to create a mythology that allows them to continue being powerful. "

And that's all this administration has been about ... a myth ... the unicorn's gift to liberals ... the Messiah ... the One ....

But what the world is now discovering is that there is nothing more than the man-child behind the podium .... a loser ... educated people tried to warn you useful idiots about this ... but would you listen ... of course not ... all of you dullards were just so caught up in the pixie dust ... the 12 y/o was right all along .... the emperor has no clothes ....
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mallard 6:08 AM on April 29, 2011
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MarlenaRae, wherever you have communism, you eventually will have an enormous pile of human skulls...the victims of communism. Make no mistake, Obama is a communist. Pol Pot also was a "community organizer" and a college professor. He studied Marx the same what that Obama has studied Marx. His implementation however was swifter, perhaps we are being given a reprieve because Obama has constitution roadblocks. (for those whom the press say have a "constitution fetish"). The similarities get scary because the millions of people murdered by communism in Cambodia werent killed by college professors, that job was left to the very young. Today we have millions upon millions of unemployed poor black youth in the country and all it takes is one communist "community organizer" to turn them into death squads serving the state. During the 2008 election some schools even went so far as to militarize students, putting them in camoflauge gear chanting "Obama, Obama". The same sort of thing is used in Africa to create mass carnage and unrest.

Obama is Americas Mugabe
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lensmanct 6:08 AM on April 29, 2011
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The Obama administration is becoming more and more like the 3rd Reich or Stalin's Russia. It is nice to see that the "reporters" who have kissed up to this egomaniac are finally beginning to see him for what he really is: a dictator.
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Stevieboy55 6:02 AM on April 29, 2011
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If you have an issue with this you are obviously a racist.
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bugeyes 6:01 AM on April 29, 2011
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Enjoy your last breath of freedom SF Chronic. In the words of Lenin, you were "useful idiots" until now. You have upset the anti-American Marxist man-child Barama. How can you be so naive to think you can cover dissenters of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama. There might be hope, if you run to Pelosi begging for forgiveness and some Barama bucks to save your floundering derriere. Hope that paid DNC union protesters are not bussed to your door, waving signs "leave our Barama alone."
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MarlenaRae 6:00 AM on April 29, 2011
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Do liberals really expect anything different? Do you not understand that your precious socialism has a flipside, i.e., dictatorial leadership? So while you happily give all your earnings to Uncle Sam to supposedly help the downtrodden, remember that you are also handing over all your liberties. After all the excitement of socialism wears off, you are going to miss those liberties.
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Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?entry_id=87978#ixzz1Kv2dUfZr