Thursday, May 02, 2013

Obama’s 'hatred' of new media understandable but selective


President Barack Obama “hates” internet media, NBC’s Political Director and Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd revealed yesterday on “Meet the Press.”

“[T]he serious stuff about the internet, the rise of the internet media and social media and all that stuff -- he hates it, Okay?” Todd told the program’s political round table of establishment media panelists.

“He hates this part of the media,” Todd explained. “He thinks that sort of coverage of political media has hurt political discourse. He hates it. And I think he was trying to make that clear last night.

Todd was referring to Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an annual gathering where the president and top political shakers and movers break bread and rub elbows with select celebrity news and entertainment figures.

That Obama and much of what Vice President Joe Biden calls “legitimate media” are dismissive and hostile to new media is a given -- when gatekeepers can no longer control both public access to information and even what is being discussed, not only do upstarts become threats to agendas, but also to political and economic survival.

Just one of many examples of new media beating the old and bringing facts to light those in power would prefer to leave unnoticed was the uncovering and exposing of Operation Fast and Furious. What may have gone unsaid but hasn’t gone unnoticed is that this was accomplished by a pair of relatively obscure bloggers with no formal journalism credentials, developing their own sources and leads with no organizations backing them, no budgets, and a limited niche readership that made breaking the story into the mainstream seem a hopeless expectation.

Naturally, the "Authorized Journalists" ignored the story, or resisted the story, or re-spun the story to give cover for a cynical criminal government-initiated enterprise where untold people died and are still dying. By the time it did break out of the gun activist blogosphere and into the world of television and newspapers, it was only because an investigation the bloggers practically forced on Congress made ignoring the story problematic for any outlet concerned with its reputation for journalistic integrity, meaning that’s just what most of the Correspondents’ Dinner attendees did and continue to do in the interests of shielding their most favored administration.

That said, Obama’s hatred for new media is one-sided, that is, he only hates that which does not promote or defend him, or that which he cannot control. Because there are some new media efforts the president loves and uses to advance his agenda, and these are efforts the gun advocacy community can’t afford to ignore.

More Here at Gun Rights Examiner

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