Really Mr. President – Truth now? “Let ‘er rip” – 38 Groups Complain

Editor’s Note – The news this week that 38 Journalist Groups are complaining about the suppression of news from the Obama Administration is echoing across the globe. We chose to bring you this posting at the Voice of Russia because the world watches us very closely.

We may not see all that goes on across the globe in our media, but you can be sure they are watching ours.

We have reported many times where our standing and reputation around the world has taken a severe dive due to the Obama Administration’s feckless and failed foreign policy and now we see that something we hold dear is being noticed as well.

Freedom of the Press has been jeopardized, one of our hallmark rights is clearly being stymied and the press are finally noticing.

How do we continue on the moral high ground when our freedom of speech is under attack, freedom of the press is under attack, freedom of religion is under attack, and more? People in Russia must be laughing from Moscow to Crimea.

Reporters are knowingly under threat via the NSA, the DOJ, and the IRS. Journalists are not only being shut out, they feel, and are truly threatened if they report on all the scandals.

So much for the ‘most transparent’ administration in history. in recent speeches over the past few days, many more “shake my head” moments came directly from the President’s own words:

Noted funnyman and U.S. President Barack Obama reverted to “telling the truth” in Austin, Texas today, informing a crowd of easily-amused young people (judging from the backdrop in this video) that he could finally relax on all the lying because he doesn’t have to worry about campaigning – or all the lying that accompanies it – anymore.

“I – I – I … I’m just telling the truth now. I don’t have to run for office again, so I can, just, you know, let ‘er rip,” Obama kidded. (Read the rest here at PersonalLiberty.com)

38 journalist groups in US protest against suppression of media by White House

From the Voice of Russia

38 journalism groups in the US have sent a message addressed to President Barack Obama expressing protest against the “politically-driven suppression of news and information” about the activities of the American authorities. According to the capital’s online newspaper The Washington Examiner, this is an unprecedented criticism of the White House.

It is particularly significant because immediately after coming to power, Obama promised to make his government the most transparent one in American history.
“You recently expressed concern that frustration in the country is breeding cynicism about democratic government,” the authors of the letter to the owner of the White House write.

“You need look no further than your own administration for a major source of that frustration – politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies. We call on you to take a stand to stop the spin and let the sunshine in.”

The journalists specifically complain that in all branches of the US government officials were banned from communicating with them, especially “on the record,” that their questions and requests for interviews regularly remain unanswered, and that judiciary journalists were even included in departmental black lists.

“We also ask you provide an avenue through which any incidents of this suppression of communication may be reported and corrected,” the representatives of the journalist community emphasize in their letter. “Create an ombudsman to monitor and enforce your stated goal of restoring transparency to government and giving the public the unvarnished truth about its workings.”

President of the Society of Professional Journalists of the USA David Cuillier was the first to sign the letter. He was accompanied by heads of the National Press Foundation, National Newspaper Association, National Press Photographers Association, Regional Reporters Association, Secretary General of the Reporters without Borders, Frenchman Christophe Deloire, and heads of many specialized and regional associations.

Of course, the journalistic community cares first of all about problems with the coverage of life in America. But the Obama administration has repeatedly been harshly criticized also for suppressing information in the sphere of national security and foreign policy and for tough prosecution of people who distribute such information, including Edward Snowden.

And most recently, voices of protest against the extremely one-sided and biased approach of the authorities and the media that are at one with them to the coverage of the current crisis in Ukraine are heard in the professional journalist community in the US. In essence, the matter here concerns the same propagandistic “spin” of news.

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