print“How would you grade this administration, compared to others, when it comes to its relationship with the media?” The question was posed to New York Times editor Jill Abramson by Al Jazeera America.
Abramson replied:
Well, I would slightly like to interpret the question as “How secretive is this White House?” which I think is the most important question. I would say it is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering, and that includes — I spent 22 years of my career in Washington and covered presidents from President Reagan on up through now, and I was Washington bureau chief of the Times during George W. Bush’s first term.
I dealt directly with the Bush White House when they had concerns that stories we were about to run put the national security under threat. But, you know, they were not pursuing criminal leak investigations. The Obama administration has had seven criminal leak investigations. That is more than twice the number of any previous administration in our history. It’s on a scale never seen before. This is the most secretive White House that, at least as a journalist, I have ever dealt with.
And do you think this comes directly from the president?
I would think that it would have to. I don’t know that, but certainly enough attention has been focused on this issue that, if he departed from the policies of his government, I think we’d know that at this point.
Wow. I didn’t realize how much Obama has been frustrating this organ of journalistic statism. The NYT has never let on before. Instead, its reporters have “bravely” hidden that hurt inside together with so many facts they might have shared.
The Obama Administration’s idea of transparency is to share your information with the public. “Information you choose to share with the White House (directly and via third party sites) may be treated as public information,” states its new privacy policy:
A new Obama administration privacy policy released Friday explains how the government will gather the user data of online visitors to WhiteHouse.gov, mobile apps and social media sites, and it clarifies that online comments, whether tirades or tributes, are in the open domain.
Abramson does have a sense of humor: The New York Times is “not liberal in the sense of being doctrinaire or tied to the Democratic Party in any way,” she asserted.
Funny woman.