Obama Threatening Press Freedom?
Darlene Rodick
February 4, 2010
Filed under National/International News, News, Top Stories
“I am the President, and I will carry out my duties as I think are appropriate,” stated President Obama during a CNN interview last August, which did much to bring into focus his bias with certain media outlets. It’s a well-known fact that since he entered the White House, President Obama has been using personal cache in order to push the television networks to program his speeches while refusing access for networks that refuse to play ball.
This endangers the independence of the press in a catastrophic way. America prides itself on being a country that depends on freedom of expression and press. It’s no secret that many of our former presidents have butted heads with the Media on many occasions, but have they ever openly threaten to cut them off from the White House? Since the Obama Administration has been asked a handful of inconvenient questions, they are now threatening to diminish the ratings of right wing media outlets such as Fox News.
According to the First Amendment, Congress cannot make any law prohibiting our freedom of press and speech. However, the President can influence the left wing media and the nation’s population to undermine some of our most conservative stations.
Still, the Obama Administration has been pushing the envelope. “Official White House spokes people defined what journalism is and what journalism is not,” stated an Obama Administration representative during a Fox News interview. “If I had a journalist that asked inconvenient questions about this White House, yeah, I would be losing sleep.” This should raise some alarm to writers that ask hard questions and tend to look more in depth than what meets the eye.
Let’s not forget the sounding words of Thomas Jefferson when he said to Elbridge Gerry, the fifth Vice President of the United States serving under President Madison in 1799, “I am… for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.”
As Americans, it is our right to speak and write what we believe is correct, even though our freedom of press is slowly beginning to diminish through political correctness. Americans must fight to uphold our Constitution and, in every turn, defend our rights against those that choose to threaten it. We cannot accept a future where an administration grants all exclusive access to one network while excluding the rest. Will the tough questions be asked then? Or will we simply see a screened or altered version of events, and of the truth? The truth has no version; it’s simply facts. If American journalists are barred from telling it like it is, what kind of news is that?