E&P: Journalism Educators Ask White House to Abandon 'Anti-Press Policies'

Editor and Publisher: Journalism Educators Ask White House to Abandon 'Anti-Press Policies'
By E&P Staff
Published: August 05, 2006

NEW YORK Attendees at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) in San Francisco on Friday passed a resolution condemning "anti-press policies" taken by the Bush administration in recent years. It was described as the first such resolution against a president since the Vietnam war era.

Policies that members of the leading group of journalism academics asked the White House to abandon included tight restrictions on the flow of information, "staged town meetings," refusal to allow photos of coffins returning from Iraq, "massive reclassification of documents," attempts to consolidate media, use of "bribes" to columnists and distribution of uncredited video news releases, and "using the courts to pressure journalists to give up their sources and to punish them for obtaining leaked information."

The resolution stated:

"The relationship between the presidency and press has always been uneasy. This tension is both unavoidable and generally salutary: When each side conducts its duties with honesty and integrity, both hold the power of the other in check. It is difficult to find a period in American history in which this mutual opposition did not exist.

"However, it has come to pass that the current administration has engaged in a number of practices and has enacted a series of severe and extraordinary policies that attack the press specifically and by extension, democracy itself.

"A working democracy requires a free press that is muscular in its reporting. It requires a press that holds leaders accountable for their actions. It requires a press that contrasts leaders' words with their actions. It requires a press that uncovers errors and wrongdoing by employing named and unnamed sources. We believe the actions of the current administration compromise these press functions....

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002950975

should declare its own independence and refuse to go along to get along.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/2007politicalcalendars.htm

boycott the White House briefing or Press Room, until they cut this shit out..

of course the right wing would fill the room with Shills and Faux news people..

The press could so easily SAVAGE these people, but instead want a pat on the head.

somewhere you think would get more attention (wouldn't have to use exact headline) please give it a try. I agree: important.