WH Lies: Excluding FOX News Did Indeed Happen

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Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered documents from the Obama Department of Treasury showing that the Obama administration, contrary to its repeated denials, attempted to exclude the Fox News Channel (FNC) from a round of interviews with Treasury’s “Executive Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The documents, which include email exchanges within the Department of the Treasury and between Treasury and White House staff, also provide colorful evidence of an anti-Fox News bias within the Obama White House.

…According to The New York Times: “Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Thursday [October 22, 2009] to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a ‘pool’ camera crew…”. Fox News Channel’s James Rosen reported this backlash forced the Obama administration to reconsider its position on the matter: “The Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV news network consulted and decided that none of them would interview Feinberg unless Fox was included, and the administration relented…,” reported Rosen. Ultimately, after other media representatives objected, Fox News Channel was allowed to participate in the interviews.

The Treasury Department’s official response, as detailed in back-and-forth emails uncovered by Judicial Watch, included a clear denial of any such plot to exclude Fox News from the interviews: “There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing.” Moreover, in an October 23, 2009 email to New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg, Jake Siewart, Counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, repeated the denial that there was an effort to exclude Fox News Channel: “Call me today on your Fox-Treasury report,” Siewart wrote. “Not true that there was an ‘effort to exclude’ Fox.”

However, despite this public position, internal Obama administration emails obtained by Judicial Watch provide evidence that FNC was specifically singled out for exclusion. According to one October 22, 2009, email exchange between Dag Vega, Director of Broadcast Media on the White House staff, to Jenni LeCompte, then-Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the Treasury Department, Vega informs LeCompte that “…we’d prefer if you skip Fox please.”

…Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest bluntly described the White House’s position on Fox News Channel in an October 23, 2009, email to LeCompte: “We’ve demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews…”

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Another sad fact how truly independent news has just about become obsolete in the land of the free, and free press. Yes free to print only one side of any issue. Nowadays one has to really work hard at tracing sources of the article back to where they originated from if you want to attempt to get a non-biased report. Even mundane articles on psychology ,medicine and science have fallen victim to partisan politics and how they are presented to the public. And now with the President of America trying to filter and control what the citizens read is really terrifying in many ways. I know it’s just another cold hard fact of the times we now live in, but it still wrong and has set another precedent in the oval office. Don’t get me wrong you got to be an idiot not to know that FOXNEWS was not on Obi’s xmas party list, but this is just so blatant, and so wrong.

Play me another round of ‘hearts and flowers’ on your magic violin. As I recall, Bush regularly excluded MSNBC staff from his ‘special’ news conferences.

@Liberal1 (objectivity):

As I recall, Bush regularly excluded MSNBC staff from his ‘special’ news conferences.

Source citation please.