White House 'Counterattacks' Against Media 'Sunshine' (People's
Daily, China)
Is the seizure of Associated
Press phone records just the U.S. government's way of keeping 'disinfectant
sunshine' from going too far? Columnist Liu Zhun of
China's state-run People's Daily offer
something of a defense of both parties to the Justice Department's seizure of
phone records from the AP, calling it just the latest skirmish in the
never-ending battle between the U.S. government and media.
Wategate redux?: President Gerald Ford takes over from a disgraced Richard Nixon, as the former president prepares to leave the White House fgor the last time on Marine One, 1974.
News
this week that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) secretly acquired two
months of phone records from reporters and editors at the Associated Press continues to make headlines. Whether it is
"Obama's war on journalists," as online magazine Slate yelled, or a "bellyaching" U.S. press, according to
Fortune journalist David A. Kaplan,
the probe is just the most recent evidence of tensions between the U.S.
government and media.
While
the DOJ has not publicly explained the purpose of the probe, the cause has been
unanimously identified by U.S. media as an AP
article about a foiled terror plot in Yemen. It seems that Washington has
become notoriously unimaginative when it comes to evoking security concerns.
It
is all part of an endless game in which the U.S. government and media industry attempt
to keep one another at bay. This investigation, although it can be interpreted
from many perspectives, goes beyond addressing a national security concern that
"put the American people at risk," as Attorney General Eric Holder
put it. Although the White House claims no knowledge of the probe, this is also
a government counterattack aimed at protecting itself from snooping and being
too "disinfected" by media "sunshine."
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
Since
the Nixon Administration, which attempted to punish the Washington Post for reporting on the Watergate scandal, to the WikiLeaks
"Robin Hood" who almost flattened the hierarchy of U.S. intelligence,
this type of struggle between the U.S. government and media never ends.
There
is no doubt that free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution. But there is nothing in the document that that forbids investigation
into the activities of journalists.
This
probe and those like it, although widely condemned by U.S. media, will continue
as long as the need to stop leaks exists. These people known as whistleblowers,
who never-endingly grate on the nerves of the U.S. government, are the real
targets.
And
in fact, neither the U.S. government nor U.S. media will lose this battle. The
administration is fully permitted to ensure that the government functions securely,
while the media has a legitimate right to monitor government in its own way.
They are just doing their own jobs. It is an unfortunate friction that emerges
every now and again.
Confrontation,
compromise and contradiction is the norm between American politics and media.
