Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The Herald Has Been Wronged

By

Cross-posted locally.

I’m sure everyone has seen http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1339038 or something like it, about the Herald‘s ban from the president’s fundraiser.

I thought this would be a bigger topic on Blue Mass Group today. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, a complete outrage.

Someone needs to be fired over this. Or, if the president personally ordered it, the presidential shrink (There must be one, right?) needs to remind him he is not Emperor. This is a completely disgusting misuse of power. It sends an extremely strong “prior restraint” signal to the rest of the press corps.

I would like to see this denounced, widely, within the Democratic Party. But just as important, it needs to be widely denounced in the blog world. I don’t like the Herald either, but banning it is an indefensible, <i>Bush-like</i> thing to do.

Furthermore, it’s terrible strategy. It makes the president look awful. It will cost him votes.

Any thoughts?

 

 

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Comments

  1. The Herald wasn’t banned from anything. It is entirely manufactured faux outrage because some idiotic White House or DNC staffer put a lot of stupid stuff in an email. Fact is, the Herald had as much access to the big Cyclorama fundraiser as anybody else did, and pool duty for the Air Force 1/small fundraiser had already been assigned to the Globe. The Herald has had pool duty before and will have it again.

    Don’t believe everything you read. Especially when it’s published in the Herald.

    • What is your source? They dedicated about half of today’s paper to this. I’d be surprised if they lied that systematically.

      Further, the Obama team has been accused of this type of behavior before.

      • If it makes a good thing to froth over, it gets published. Even if it is an outright lie. They don’t care if its true, which isn’t part of the business model.

    • See my comment above and Charley’s below. This is the Herald having a tantrum, nothing more.

        • Like I said, the flack is an idiot. Beyond that, there’s nothing here. Fact is, this kind of calculation goes on behind the scenes all the time, in every administration at every level. You’re kidding yourself if you think that’s not the case.

          • Can we impose a moratorium on condescending to me in this thread? I’ve been told to grow up, not believe everything I read, and now I’m told I’m kidding myself (after you put words in my mouth).

            I KNOW every level of government tries to manipulate the press. Business does it too, and there’s a whole PR industry dedicated to doing that.

            None of that changes this. If someone in the administration singled out and tried to intimidate the Herald — and let’s not hide behind knowing who did it — that is a serious, serious problem. It is incumbent on us, as activists and as writers, to call it out.

            Or, I’m totally wrong. This possibility cannot be ruled out.

  3. Furthermore, it’s terrible strategy. It makes the president look awful. It will cost him votes.

    Any thoughts?

    …Grow up. Manufactured poutrage should, in a sane world, cost Mitt Romney more votes. Pity we don’t live in a sane world…

  4. …. and it is complete horse-assery from the Herald. Go figure.

    he Herald seems to have discovered that they only had regular press access to Obama’s Boston fundraiser, and asked for more. They were told that the pool-coverage parts of the event had already been assigned out by the White House Correspondents Association — it will be the Globe’s Donovan Slack, who is also travelling with the President all day (including flying on Air Force 1 not that I’m WICKED JEALOUS or anything).

    Pool coverage, for those who don’t know, is when it’s not practical to let the whole press come along somewhere, so one or more reporters are picked to represent them all — they file “pool reports” that go to the rest of the media.

    Read more: http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/talkingpolitics/archive/2011/05/18/herald-spits-at-white-house.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PHXTalkingPolitics+(Talking+Politics)#ixzz1MrGHbsgz

  5. Bernstein does refer to Lehrich’s email as “ham-handed,” but I think it’s quite a bit worse than that. It’s pretty disturbing that a newspaper would apply to let one of its staffers be a pool reporter and, in return, receive an email from a flack whining and complaining about Romney’s op-ed, and strongly suggesting that there might be repercussions. It creates the impression that the White House rewards its friends and punishes its enemies, even if there’s nothing on the record to suggest that’s what really happened.

    http://www.dankennedy.net/2011/05/20/reviewing-the-white-house-herald-dust-up/

  6. The Herald, as David says, is laughing up its sleeve and trying to make hay out of false outrage. Don’t blame them, they’re just trying to sell newspapers.

  7. Sorry to go meta on my own thread, but I accidentally thumbed down a comment without being logged in. Three Qs.

    1. How come I can do that without a login?
    2. How come I can’t undo that?
    3. How come it doesn’t show who did the thumbing down?

    Thanks.

    • 1. You shouldn’t be able to. We’ll get that fixed.
      2. Too complicated. This is just a simple little gadget. Maybe we’ll add that later.
      3. Too many arguments over ratings themselves — who deserved what, and why — rather than the substance of discussion. This didn’t add much to the site and annoyed pretty much everyone other than the people having the debate. It also encouraged feuds between users that, again, didn’t improve discussion, which was the ostensible purpose of the ratings in the first place.
      We may add a leaderboard (most thumbs-ups etc.) in the future. Suggestions welcome!

      • see, I thought I was replying to this comment with my “it was kind of fun” comment below, but apparently I didn’t hit reply, and I couldn’t tell that I was adding a new comment rather than replying to your comment.

      • I agree that there were too many discussions over ratings themselves and those discussions were, to put it charitably, not very edifying. I’d attribute some of that feuding to the large number of grading options on the old site –Sir, you may disagree with me and give me a 4, but you are a bounder and a coward to give me a 3.

        But as many others have already said, it adds something to the feeling of a community here at BMG to know who agrees or disagrees with one’s views. If Facebook does it, why not BMG?

  8. to get various ratings and see who gave you a 6 or a 0. But if there is some other purpose to this site than feuding then OK.

    As for suggestions: Can you make it so the reply box opens up directly below the comment you’re responding to, like Soapblox did, rather than at the bottom of the page? I know it can be done with an empty span tag after each comment and some javascript to draw the comment box into that tag. It would be nice to more easily see the comment we’re replying to.

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