Documents show media plotting to kill stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Whoever said that the media was NOT playing softball with Obama back during the 2008 campaign?? Funny, that the same game played then is still being played now by the same players of the JournoList. We can thank the recent Dave Weigel controversy for bringing this story into the light.

First, the flashback for those who may not remeber...

It was the moment of greatest peril for then-Sen. Barack Obama’s political career. In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign.

The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public – to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”

Now, the outrage, the marching orders and the plot from the left biased media and others...

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

Time to pick TARGETS! This is just outrageous because it is a direct reflection of the same rhetoric blurted on ATS at that time and up until today.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

“Richard Kim got this right above: ‘a horrible glimpse of general election press strategy.’ He’s dead on,” Tomasky continued. “We need to throw chairs now, try as hard as we can to get the call next time. Otherwise the questions in October will be exactly like this. This is just a disease.”

(In an interview Monday, Tomasky defended his position, calling the ABC debate an example of shoddy journalism.)

Thomas Schaller, a columnist for the Baltimore Sun as well as a political science professor, upped the ante from there. In a post with the subject header, “why don’t we use the power of this list to do something about the debate?” Schaller proposed coordinating a “smart statement expressing disgust” at the questions Gibson and Stephanopoulos had posed to Obama.

“It would create quite a stir, I bet, and be a warning against future behavior of the sort,” Schaller wrote.

Tomasky approved. “YES. A thousand times yes,” he exclaimed.

So, here we have a massive collaborative effort by journalists and like minded folks to write a letter chastising the LEGITIMATE questions raised during a moderated debate. The letter was published.

Journolist members signed the statement and released it April 18, calling the debate “a revolting descent into tabloid journalism and a gross disservice to Americans concerned about the great issues facing the nation and the world.”

The letter caused a brief splash and won the attention of the New York Times. But only a week later, Obama – and the journalists who were helping him – were on the defensive once again.

Jeremiah Wright was back in the news after making a series of media appearances. At the National Press Club, Wright claimed Obama had only repudiated his beliefs for “political reasons.” Wright also reiterated his charge that the U.S. federal government had created AIDS as a means of committing genocide against African Americans.

Now, based on Wright's statements, the Journolist members again collaborate to save the ship in ANOTHER attempt to bury the Wright relationship with Obama.

Chris Hayes of the Nation posted on April 29, 2008, urging his colleagues to ignore Wright. Hayes directed his message to “particularly those in the ostensible mainstream media” who were members of the list.

The Wright controversy, Hayes argued, was not about Wright at all. Instead, “It has everything to do with the attempts of the right to maintain control of the country.”

Hayes castigated his fellow liberals for criticizing Wright. “All this hand wringing about just
how awful and odious Rev. Wright remarks are just keeps the hustle going.”

“Our country disappears people. It tortures people. It has the blood of as many as one million Iraqi civilians — men, women, children, the infirmed — on its hands. You’ll forgive me if I just can’t quite dredge up the requisite amount of outrage over Barack Obama’s pastor,” Hayes wrote.

Hayes urged his colleagues – especially the straight news reporters who were charged with covering the campaign in a neutral way – to bury the Wright scandal. “I’m not saying we should all rush en masse to defend Wright. If you don’t think he’s worthy of defense, don’t defend him! What I’m saying is that there is no earthly reason to use our various platforms to discuss what about Wright we find objectionable,” Hayes said.

(Reached by phone Monday, Hayes argued his words then fell on deaf ears. “I can say ‘hey I don’t think you guys should cover this,’ but no one listened to me.”)

Here is where the call to action was escalated even more: Race Card is played!!

Ackerman went on:

"I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction."

A couple of JournoList members disagreed with Ackerman's tactics:

Kevin Drum, then of Washington Monthly, also disagreed with Ackerman’s strategy. “I think it’s worth keeping in mind that Obama is trying (or says he’s trying) to run a campaign that avoids precisely the kind of thing Spencer is talking about, and turning this into a gutter brawl would probably hurt the Obama brand pretty strongly. After all, why vote for him if it turns out he’s not going change the way politics works?”

But it was Ackerman who had the last word. “Kevin, I’m not saying OBAMA should do this. I’m saying WE should do this.”

dailycaller.com...

A little about the JournoList


This story is worthy of plenty of attention! If your are concerned by it, please share it because is shines a spotlight on the MSM juggernaut and their influence on public opinion. Especially, as it pertains to Obama and his connections that have been ignored by the media. Hmmmm I wonder why?? BTW The connections are still there and they have been revealed by the few media outlets that are actually concerned about the TRUTH and true journalism!!

Mod Edit: BB Code.





[edit on 21/7/2010 by Mirthful Me]

What did the reverend even say that was so bad?

He made a lot of good points and spoke a lot of truth... I don't get why people on both sides of the pro and anti-obama spectrum seem to have such a boner for throwing the guy's name around like it's a bad thing...

Originally stated by rev. wright
From "The Day of Jerusalem's Fall" 9/16/2001

I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday, did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out, did you see him John, a white man, and he pointed out, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammed was in fact true, America's chickens…are coming home to roost. We took this country by terror, away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arowak, the Comanche, the Arapahoe, the Navajo. Terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Granada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers, and hardworking fathers. We bombed Qaddafi's home and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children's head against a rock. We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hardworking people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children from school, civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

Originally stated by rev. wright
From "Confusing God and Government" 4/13/03

The British government failed, the Russian government failed, the Japanese government failed, the German government failed, and the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese decent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. The government put them in chains. She put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in sub-standard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education, and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strike law, and then wants us to sing God Bless America…no, no, no

Not God bless America, God damn America. That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent. Think about this, think about this.

For every one Oprah, a billionaire, you've got 5 million blacks who out of work. For every one Colin Powell, a millionaire, you've got 10 million blacks who cannot read. For every one Condoskeeza Rice, you've got 1 million in prison. For every one Tiger Woods, who needs to get beat, at the Masters, with his cap, blazin' hips playing on a course that discriminates against women. God has his way of bringing you up short when you get to big for your cap, blazin britches. For every one Tiger Woods, we got 10,000 black kids who will never see a golf course. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.

[edit on 20-7-2010 by alaskan]

reply to post by alaskan


You do realize that Obama attended Wright's church for 20 years and that Wright was the man who married Barack and Michelle? Wright still preaches and spreads his radical vitriol just as he has been doing for the past 20 years.

Obama quickly threw Wright under the bus solely for political gain. Obama never defended Wright's radical preaching he just played stupid then and continues to play the game now while being protected by the press.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's controversial ex-pastor, threw a hissy fit in a letter to an African aid group, claiming that the president "threw me under the bus" and the White House views him as "toxic."

In a missive obtained by the Associated Press, Wright told Africa 6000 International that the Obama administration would likely ignore his efforts to release frozen funds for use in earthquake-stricken Haiti.

"No one in the Obama administration will respond to me, listen to me, talk to me or read anything that I write to them. I am 'toxic' in terms of the Obama administration," Wright wrote the president of the Pennsylvania-based group, Joseph Prischak, earlier this year.

"I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!" he wrote. "Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!"

The White House didn't respond to requests for comment Monday about Wright's remarks.

Several phone messages left for Wright at his Trinity United Church of Christ were not returned. Wright's spokeswoman, his daughter Jeri Wright, did not immediately comment on the substance of the letter.

In the spring of 2008, a video of Wright denouncing American policies in a sermon at his Chicago church threw then-Sen. Obama's presidential campaign into turmoil.

Obama sharply denounced his former pastor's incendiary remarks.

But Wright continued to ignite controversy.

In a speech to the National Press Club in April 2008, he claimed the U.S. government could plant AIDS in the black community, praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and suggested Obama's shunning of his pastor was simply a PR move.

That rant prompted Obama to cut ties with Wright, whom he labeled "divisive and destructive," and leave his church.

Wright's letter was sent Feb. 18 to Prischak, the president of Africa 6000 International in Erie, Pa. Wright subsequently agreed to write a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the group's behalf to try to get access to millions of dollars.

www.nydailynews.com...

Bumping to keep this going.

Star and Flag.

Providing evidence that certain members of the media conspired to aid Obama win the '08 election is as necessary as providing evidence that a clear sky is blue.

OK...Read the article at FOX you linked to...then read the article on Tucker Carlson's "the Daily Caller".

Here is what is being spun...Her is the question that the Journalists on the forum were responding to...

Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”

Here are the responses that are being claimed to be a conspiracy by journalists to protect Obama...I am skipping the spin and sticking to the evidence the cited.

The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”

Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent
Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

“Richard Kim got this right above: ‘a horrible glimpse of general election press strategy.’ He’s dead on,” Tomasky continued. “We need to throw chairs now, try as hard as we can to get the call next time. Otherwise the questions in October will be exactly like this. This is just a disease.”

Thomas Schaller, “why don’t we use the power of this list to do something about the debate?”

“It would create quite a stir, I bet, and be a warning against future behavior of the sort,” Schaller wrote.

All in all I agree with what was stated here.

With two wars and a collapsing economy George Stephanopoulos asks on a sunday morning news show..."Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?"

WTF has happened to journalism in this country...read the quotes above again without the spin...just what was said..

"do something about the debate"...THE DEBATE...WHAT IS BEING DEBATED...What Obama's Rev said in a Sermon????

"Otherwise the questions in October will be exactly like this. This is just a disease.” YES...it is. This kind of journalism is a disease for anyone that cares about the country and REAL national discourse on the ISSUES.

"This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

Jesus...this is what we complain about here on ATS...he says it and it is a conspiracy by journalists??? Seriously WTF? How bad is your need to be partisan to spin stuff this way?

reply to post by maybereal11

First, I didn't quote Fox as you stated. I went straight from DC.

Put Steph's question into the context of that moment when the truth about Wright's comments to his flock was surfacing. The question was legitimate because most of the nation would have asked Obama the same question at that time.

So much for freedom of the press to ask questions. Funny, that the press sought to launch a gang bang on liberal George and all of the conservative opposition in the media.

Ackerman called for the race card with nothing to back it up. Do you condone that??

Give me a break and try to see this for what it is instead of trying to interpret it to your liking.

This was the exchange:

Stephanopoulos asked Obama about his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose impassioned denunciations of the American government were widely disseminated on the Web last month.

“But do you believe he’s as patriotic as you are?” Stephanopoulos asked.

Obama replied, “This is somebody who's a former Marine. So, I believe that he loves this country. But I also believe that he’s somebody who, because of the experiences he’s had over the course of a lifetime, is also angry about the injustices he’s had.”

David Brooks from the NYT summed it up very clearly:

The journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities. Almost every question tonight did that.”

latimesblogs.latimes.com...

Don't forget that also in that same debate, Steph asked Obama about his relationship with Bill Ayers. Why no outrage about that?? Pertinent questions Indeed!!

In politics, relationships are everything!! We are finally learning that lesson after the fact as it pertains to Obama.

You're right in asking the question What has happened to journalism??

Seek the truth!!

[edit on 20-7-2010 by jibeho]

[edit on 20-7-2010 by jibeho]

[edit on 20-7-2010 by jibeho]

reply to post by maybereal11

Michigan Muslims Want Charges Against Quran Burner for 'Tremendous Grief and Pain'...

www.detnews.com...

The media is run by radical feminists who sympathise with the blacks because they too have been "oppressed" by the white man (please..idiots). That is why they threw this story under the bed. Welcome to communism my friend, it is just beginning. You have seen nothing yet... Wait until they start slaughtering us white males.