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January 18, 2005
Bush subverting the press or Dan Rather making a mistake - which should be the bigger story?
OK - it's not about our Vietnam ride, but it's our blog and we can write what we want!
Dan Gillmor points out this terrific David Shaw column in the LA Times where he talks about the fact that the news has given much more space to "60 Minutes" getting the facts on Bush's Guard service wrong than they have to the news that the administration paid tv commentator Armstrong Williams lots of money to lobby for its legislative agenda without attribution, and how that's only one example of Bush's shameless propaganda efforts.
But few administrations have actually tried to subvert the news media and use taxpayer dollars to mislead the American public as blatantly as has the Bush administration. When you combine those efforts with Bush's record of media avoidance — he had fewer news conferences in his first term than any first-term president since William Howard Taft — it becomes clear that for all his speechifying about American freedoms, he has no interest in the unfettered operation of a free press properly serving a free society.
Well worth a read.
Posted by oren at January 18, 2005 04:44 PM