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05.23.2013 1

Obama’s Assault on the First Amendment Unites the Media in Defense of Fox News

By Willie Deutsch

During yesterday’s IRS hearing, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WIS) stated, “If there is a silver lining in the IRS’s wrongdoing, it’s that it has united Republicans and Democrats against a common enemy: that evil IRS.”

The IRS scandal isn’t the only one to unite Americans.  We’ve seen a blistering attack on the Obama administration about the Benghazi attacks, but it is Obama’s assault on the first amendment which seems to have done more than anything else to unite the media against Obama.  Defending others from a “vaguely tyrannical” administration is one thing, but nothing makes the press more upset than when the government comes after them.  It began with the AP being wiretapped, continued with FOX Reporter James Rosen being investigated after he was investigating the White House, and now with CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson reporting her computer being compromised following her reporting on the White House reporters are alarmed.

The rationale the Obama administration used to investigate Rosen is particularly chilling.  Rosen is being accused of being a coconspirator in leaking classified information.  The FBI affidavit accuses Rosen of, “asked, solicited and encouraged Mr. Kim to disclose sensitive United States internal documents and intelligence information.”  Media law experts said, “the Justice Department had crossed a line by equating routine reporting practices with possible criminal activity.”  The idea that reporting is a crime is what has the White House press corps in arms, and the media everywhere rallying to the defense of Fox News.

Jonathan Karl of ABC News and Major Garrett of CBS News were visibly angry at a recent White House Press Conference.  “A stunned Garrett asked Carney whether he considered the ordinary activity of journalism–which relies on administration sources–to be a crime. Carney ducked, emphasizing the importance of preventing national security leaks.”  Another journalist tried to put the issue in terms Carney could relate to asking “what he would have done had he, as a former journalist, faced the sort of crackdown at Time for reporting on the Valeria Plame scandal that Rosen faced at Fox News for writing about North Korea.” Carney refused to answer the question calling it a “hypothetical” and quickly tried to move on.

As the White House has refused to give honest answers on an issue so important to the press, the press is becoming more and more skeptical of every answer Carney gives.  Fox News has been the outcast child of the White House Press Conferences.  Uniting the rest of the media in defense of Fox is something only the Obama administration could do.  In doing so, it has made the media openly hostile towards them.  This is something Democrat administrations are not prepared to handle, and it will be interesting to see how the next three year proceed for Obama as a result.

Check out the White House Press Corps grilling Jay Carney over the Rosen investigation.

Also check out the Fox News round table on the topic.

Willie Deutsch is Editor-in-Chief for NetRightDaily.com, and Social Media Director for Americans for Limited Government. You can follow him on twitter @williedeutsch.

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