Chicago Style Politics...

[matthewaynelson]

Rahm's Media Muscle
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, August 04, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Media Bias: Is it just us or is there something wrong with the White House dictating news coverage to advance the president's medical insurance agenda? We thought this sort of thing happened only in Venezuela.

In an unprecedented intervention by government in private media, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel called all three TV networks and muscled them into giving President Obama prime time coverage for his medical expansion program.

For some, Emanuel didn't bother with mere newsmen. He went straight to the top, calling corporate owners such as Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger, whose company controls ABC, and General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, NBC's boss.

"Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm-twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network time for his boss in six months," wrote Howard Kurtz, who broke the story in Monday's Washington Post.

How's that again? Is this a free press in a democracy? Since when does prefabricated news from the presidential staff serve the interests of free citizens? The problems here are obvious — or should be. (More)

In another post on this forum, there is a great deal of talk about which media sources can be trusted and which cannot. I may not know about all of them... but, I know of at least a few (based on the article above) that cannot be trusted!