NY Times reporter’s stunning truth: Obama administration ‘the greatest enemy of press freedom’

The Obama administration’s mean streak is getting so wide, even New York Times reporters are noticing it.

At a  journalism discussion panel last week, New York Times reporter James Risen wandered off the liberal reservation to brand the Obama administration “the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation,” according to a report on the journalism website Poynter.org.

obamapress0326new
Photo: Bernardavashai.blogspot.com

The Obama administration tries to “narrow the field of national security reporting to create a path for accepted reporting,” Risen said. Those who stray from the path “will be punished,” and the media has been “too timid” in responding.

Risen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter in a legal fight with the administration over his ability to protect a source, so he’s got a personal stake in calling out the administration’s antagonism to press freedom.

But why limit it to the press?

The biggest to American liberty that The New Times and its brethren are ignoring isn’t Obama stooges keeping tabs on reporters, Bush-era wiretaps, or even the potential for the government killing American citizens overseas without a trial (like the late unlamented Anwar al-Awlaki).

It’s the liberal, progressive Obama era’s constant erosion of freedoms no one ever questioned before that’s the biggest threat – like the freedom of citizens’ groups to take part in the political process without getting steamrolled by the IRS, or the Little Sisters of the Poor to decide what they believe and how they act on it, or the freedom of photographers to decide whose weddings they’ll take pictures of.

Risen might finally get it that the Obama administration is “the greatest enemy of press freedom” the country has seen in a while.

But like most reporters, he needs an editor.

Take out the word “press” and he’ll be closer to the truth.

You won’t read that in The New York Times, though.

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!

Success! Thank you for donating. Please share BPR content to help combat the lies.
Joe Saunders

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

BPR INSIDER COMMENTS

Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!

Comments are closed.

Latest Articles