NBC Cheers Wall Street Protests As Liberal Version of Tea Party But Denounced Actual Tea Party
October 3, 2011 No Comment
On Monday's NBC “Today,” correspondent Michelle Franzen reported on the left-wing “Occupy Wall Street” protests in New York and proclaimed: “Protesters fed up with the economy and social inequality turned out en masse over the weekend….Voicing their discontent and marching for change.” Touting the protest as “a movement that has taken off in the past few weeks with protests spreading to other cities around the country,” Franzen declared: “Labor experts say uprisings overseas have empowered protesters to speak out.” A sound bite was included of Columbia University's Dorian Warren arguing: “Those movements, those revolutions led by young people [in the Middle East]…I think that's another, let's say, inspiration for why they are sitting-in now.” On Saturday's “Nightly News,” Franzen offered a similar report, including another sound bite from Warren, who asserted the Wall Street protests were “a liberal version of the Tea Party.” He added: “I think this could potentially carry over into the 2012 elections and get people to the polls.” On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked liberal Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne about the movement: “…your column out tomorrow talks about the equivalent Tea Party movement on the left. What did we see over the weekend in lower Manhattan and in Brooklyn, this 'Occupy Wall Street' movement….does the President, in a way, need more of this, more activism on the left to say, 'We need a response to what we're seeing on the conservative side'?” Dionne agreed and lamented: “I think the President has been hurt by the lack of an organized left….A left would be out there saying, 'Wait a minute, Barack Obama is a moderate or a moderate sort of liberal. We want to push farther than this.' Right now, the whole discussion is skewed because the media has been obsessed by the Tea Party.” That media “obsession” with the Tea Party actually began as an attempt to completely dismiss it. Noting nationwide Tea Party tax day protests on the April 15, 2009 “Today,” chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd remarked: “There's been some grassroots conservatives who have organized so-called Tea Parties around the country, hoping the historical reference will help galvanize Americans against the President's economic ideas. But, I tell you, the idea hasn't really caught on.” As the Tea Party gained momentum, the media changed tactics, demonizing it as racially motivated. In an interview with Jimmy Carter on the September 14, 2009 “Nightly News,” anchor Brian Williams highlighted the former president's smear of the movement: “A certain number of signs and images at last weekend's big Tea Party march in Washington and at other recent events have featured racial and other violent themes, and President Carter today said he is extremely worried by it.” In contrast, NBC's reporting on the Wall Street protesters was free of criticism. In fact, on the September 27 “Today,” news anchor Natalie Morales announced: “Protesters camping out on Wall Street got an unexpected visit last night from filmmaker Michael Moore. The 'Occupy Wall Street' protest against corporate greed is in its second week. Protesters called Moore's visit a 'morale boost' after police arrested 87 demonstrators this weekend.” Despite such arrests, and another 700 that occurred on Saturday as protesters attempted to stop traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, NBC reporters voiced no concern of potential violence or extremism from the left-wing group. However, on the March 24, 2010 “Nightly News,” Williams warned viewers about the Tea Party: “It's getting ugly as anger over health care reform erupts into some over-the-top rhetoric, including threats now against members of Congress….It can now be said that the debate over health care reform has gone too far. It's now veered into threats of violence.” Unlike NBC, ABC and CBS have given little coverage to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests –
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PERUGIA, Italy — Amanda Knox tearfully told an Italian appeals court Monday she did not kill her British roommate, pleading for the court to free her so she can return to the United States after four years behind bars. Moments later, the court began deliberations. Knox frequently paused for breath and fought back tears as she spoke in Italian to the eight members of the jury in a packed courtroom, but managed to maintain her composure during the 10-minute address. “I’ve lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible,” she said of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old Briton who shared an apartment with Knox when they were both students in Perugia. “I’m paying with my life for things that I didn’t do.” Knox and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend from Italy, were convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher, who was stabbed to death in her bedroom. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25. They both deny wrongdoing. “I never hurt anyone, never in my life,” Sollecito said Monday in his own speech to the jury. Presiding Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann said the jury would not emerge before 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT) at the earliest. Kercher’s mother, sister and a brother traveled to Perugia and were expected in to be in court for the verdict. They have expressed worry over the possibility of acquittal but told reporters as the jury deliberated that they hoped the jury would do the right thing. “As long as they decide today based purely on the information available to them and they don’t look into the media hype, I think justice will be found,” the victim’s sister, Stephanie Kercher, told reporters. She lamented that Meredith had been “most forgotten” in the media circus surrounding the case, with news photos more frequently showing Knox and Sollecito than “Mez” – the victim’s nickname. “It’s very difficult to keep her memory alive in all of this,” she said. The family’s lawyer said it wants the original verdicts upheld. “The lower court found the defendants guilty. The Kercher family’s interest is to have the verdict confirmed,” he said. The highly anticipated verdict will be broadcast live. Hundreds of reporters and camera crews filled the underground, frescoed courtroom before Knox’s address on Monday, while police outside cordoned off the entrance to the tribunal. The trial has captivated audiences worldwide: Knox, the 24-year-old American, and Sollecito, a soft-spoken Italian, were convicted of murdering a fellow student in what the lower court said had begun as a drug-fueled sexual assault. Knox insisted Monday that she had nothing to do with the murder and that Kercher was a friend who was always nice to her. Gesticulating, at times clasping her hands together, the American said she has always wanted justice for Kercher. “She had her bedroom next to mine, she was killed in our own apartment. If I had been there that night, I would be dead,” Knox said. “But I was not there.” “I did not kill. I did not rape. I did not steal. I wasn’t there,” Knox said. Also convicted in separate proceedings was Rudy Hermann Guede, a small-time drug dealer and drifter who spent most of his life in Italy after arriving here from his native Ivory Coast. Guede was convicted in a separate fast-track procedure and saw his sentence cut to 16 years in his final appeal. Lawyers for Knox and Sollecito have said Guede was the sole killer. Knox said she had nothing more than a passing acquaintance with Guede, who played basketball in a court near the house, and didn’t even know his name. Sollecito, who addressed the court before Knox, told jurors that he did not know Guede at all. Sollecito was anxious as he addressed the court, shifting as he spoke and stopping to sip water. He said prior to the Nov. 1, 2007 murder was a happy time for him, he was close to defending his thesis to graduate from university and had just met Knox. The weekend Kercher was murdered was the first the pair planned to spend together “in tenderness and cuddles,” he said. At the end of his 17-minute address, Sollecito took off a white rubber bracelet emblazoned with “Free Amanda and Raffaele” that he said he was been wearing for four years. “I have never taken it off. Many emotions are concentrated in this bracelet,” he said. “Now I want to pay homage to the court. The moment to take it off has arrived.” Knox and her family, present in Perugia, hope she will be set free after spending four years behind bars caught up in what they say is a monumental judicial mistake. Prosecutors, who have depicted Knox as a manipulative liar, are seeking to increase her sentence to life in prison. The jury is made up of the presiding judge, a side judge and six jurors, five of them women, and they have several options as they go into deliberations. They can acquit both defendants and set them free. They can uphold the conviction, then confirm the sentence, reduce it or increase it. They can theoretically decide to split the fate of Knox and Sollecito, convicting one and acquitting the other. The verdict doesn’t have to be unanimous, only a majority is required. A verdict is expected late Monday, though in theory deliberations could continue into Tuesday. Over the course of the appeals trial, the defendants’ positions have significantly improved, mainly because a court-ordered independent review cast serious doubts over the main DNA evidence linking the two to the crime. Prosecutors maintain that Knox’s DNA was found on the handle of a kitchen knife believed to be the murder weapon, and that Kercher’s DNA was found on the blade. They said Sollecito’s DNA was on the clasp of Kercher’s bra as part of a mix of evidence that also included the victim’s genetic profile. But the independent review – ordered at the request of the defense, which had always disputed those findings – reached a different conclusion. The two experts found that police conducting the investigation had made glaring errors in evidence-collecting and that below-standard testing and possible contamination raised doubts over the attribution of DNA traces, both on the blade and on the bra clasp, which was collected from the crime scene 46 days after the murder. The review was crucial in the case because no motive has emerged and witness testimony was contradictory. It was a huge boost for the defense’s hope and a potentially fatal blow for the prosecution. The prosecutors, however, refute the review and stand by their original conclusions.
Continue reading …Nobel prize officials face dilemma after unwittingly honouring dead scientist
October 3, 2011 No Comment
Nobel prize for medicine given to three biologists for work on immune system, but one of them died just days ago The Nobel prize season began under a dark cloud on Monday when it emerged that one of the winners of the freshly minted medicine award had passed away days before. The world’s most prestigious prizes honour scientists and other leading figures for exceptional contributions to their fields, but the prize rules state that they cannot be awarded posthumously. Officials at the Nobel assembly will meet over the next few days to decide whether the prize stands or needs to be amended. This year’s prize for medicine was given to three biologists whose work on the immune system opened up new avenues in the fight against infections and diseases . American Bruce Beutler , 53, and French biologist Jules Hoffmann , 70, share half of the 10 million Swedish kronor (£934,000) prize money, with the remainder earmarked for the 68-year-old Canadian-born Ralph Steinman . But when the Nobel committee tried on Monday to contact Dr Steinman, a researcher at Rockefeller University in New York, they heard that he had died from pancreatic cancer on Friday. Steinman had been treating himself with a therapy based on his own research into the body’s immune system, but died after a four-year battle with the disease. Göran Hansson, secretary general of the Nobel committee , told the Guardian: “We never inform the winners in advance. I couldn’t get through to Dr Steinman for obvious reasons, so I sent an email that was picked up by his daughter who contacted the president of Rockefeller University. He then contacted us with the news.” Hansson said it was too early to speculate on whether Steinman’s part of the prize would stand. Since 1974, a Nobel prize can only be handed out posthumously if the recipient dies between the award being announced and the traditional ceremony in December. “We expect to take a decision on this with the Nobel Foundation within the next few days. Right now our thoughts go to Dr Steinman’s family and collaborators. We are shocked by the sadness,” Hansson said. The Nobel assembly regularly takes decades to recognise achievements worthy of the prize and many winners are retired by the time they receive the honour. But Hansson said this appeared to be the first time since the rules were updated in 1974 that the prize had been awarded to someone who was deceased. “This is a unique situation we are facing,” he said. Prior to 1974, a person could be awarded a prize posthumously if they had already been nominated before February of the same year. This was the case for Erik Axel Karlfeldt, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1931, and Dag Hammarskjöld, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961. In a statement released on Monday , Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of Rockefeller University, said the university was “delighted” that the Nobel Foundation had recognised Steinman’s “seminal discoveries” concerning the body’s immune system. “But the news is bittersweet, as we also learned this morning from Ralph’s family that he passed a few days ago after a long battle with cancer. Our thoughts are with Ralph’s wife, children and family,” the statement said. Steinman’s daughter, Alexis, added: “We are all so touched that our father’s many years of hard work are being recognised with a Nobel Prize. He devoted his life to his work and his family, and he would be truly honoured.” The president of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse – himself a Nobel laureate – said: “This is a great tragedy. Ralph Steinman’s work was ahead of its time and he waited too long for the Nobel prize. To die just days before its announcement is almost too much to bear. He will be remembered as one of the great immunologists of our time.” The award panel at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute in Stockholm praised the researchers for work that “revolutionised our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation”. The announcement marked the start of more than a week of Nobel awards, with prizes for physics and chemistry due on Tuesday and Wednesday. The prizes for literature, peace and economics follow on Thursday, Friday and next Monday respectively. Decades of meticulous laboratory work led the three scientists to piece together how humans and animals defend themselves against potentially lethal bacteria and other microbes. Beutler, who is head of genetics at the Scripps Research Institute in California, and Hoffmann, director of research at the French national centre for scientific research (CNRS), discovered one of the body’s first lines of defence, where the immune system senses and destroys bacteria, fungi and viruses, and initiates inflammation to block their attacks. Steinman’s work in 1973 shed light on the immune system’s second line of defence, where sentinel “dendritic” cells direct the body’s killer T cells to attack foreign organisms. For many years, his work was dismissed as flawed by the wider scientific community. Before news of Steinman’s death emerged, Lars Klareskog, who chairs the prize-giving Nobel Assembly, said of the trio’s work: “I think that we will have new, better vaccines against microbes and that is very much needed now with the increased resistance against antibiotics.” Their discoveries are expected to lead to other treatments that combat cancer and “autoimmune” diseases, where the immune system becomes faulty and attacks healthy tissues in the body. One hope is for vaccines that marshall the immune system to fight tumours. The first such therapeutic cancer vaccine, Provenge, was approved for use in the US last year. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Beutler said: it was “incredible” to win a Nobel prize with Hoffman and Steinman: “My idea right from the beginning, I guess, was to dismantle the immune system one gene at a time so we could track the mutations that cause problems. “I woke up in the middle of the night, and glanced at my cellphone, and the first thing I saw was a message line that just said the words ‘Nobel Prize’. Needless to say, I grabbed it and started looking at the messages. Wow.” Nobel prizes Science prizes People in science Ian Sample guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Michael Moore Discusses Receiving Death Threats After Speaking out Against Iraq Invasion at Academy Awards in 2003
October 3, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media From C-SPAN’s in Depth on Book TV, author and documentary maker Michael Moore recalls his account of speaking out against the invasion of Iraq during the 2003 Academy Awards and the subsequent death threats he received, egged on by right wing radio and the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck for the year or two following the speech. You can watch the entire three hour interview at C-SPAN’s web site here .
Continue reading …It’s illustrative to look at how the media has covered the origin and growth of the tea party movement with the OccupyWallStreet protests. Even a handful of self-identified tea party activists, with tea bags stapled to their tricorn hats and misspelled signs, were covered breathlessly as the birth of this new populist movement, angry with the direction of the country, and rising influence. That, of course, was all completely untrue. The tea party movement was an astroturfed movement from the beginning, funded and organized by conservative organizations under jingoistic and quasi-populist names like “Americans for Prosperity” and “FreedomWorks”. Compare that to the OccupyWallStreet protesters. Truly grassroots, the media—when they do pay attention—deride them for not having a clear, unified goal (as if the tea party could be more precise than “take our country back”), for being disorganized (which is what happens when Dick Armey isn’t ordering up the signs) and for their inability to effect change (because it’s completely reasonable to expect 10 days of protests to change the status quo of 30 years of Reaganomics on Wall St). Moreover, the truly populist concerns are largely ignored by the media, who are almost monolithically more interested in what’s happening to the privileged few inside the Washington Beltway than the 99% of people who live outside it. One of the few media outlets willing to look at the protest and discuss it in a relatively intellectually honest way is my new favorite weekend news show, Up with Chris Hayes . Nancy Giles, Allison Kilkenny and J.A. Myerson point out that OccupyWallStreet suffers from the media’s own unfair expectations: any true grassroots movement will be disorganized and unlikely to effect immediate change. But it is absolutely inarguable that we are seeing the fomentation of political activism by young people who have been betrayed by the older generation’s greed, short-sightedness and complacency. And whether or not the protesters can actually cause change in Wall Street (which is doubtful, to be honest), that fire of political activism is a good thing and should continue to be stoked.
Continue reading …Man must serve 24 years for murder of woman found in suitcase at Heathrow
October 3, 2011 No Comment
Youseff Wahid fled to Lebanon after Fatima Kama’s body was found in 1999, but was tracked down by Scotland Yard A man has been jailed for at least 24 years for murdering a woman whose body was dumped in a suitcase at Heathrow airport. Youseff Wahid, 42, a former flight attendant, was found guilty in August and remanded to allow the judge to determine the minimum term of a life sentence. Wahid fled Britain for his native Lebanon the day after the body of Fatima Kama was discovered in July 1999, the Old Bailey heard. Pursued by Scotland Yard detectives, Wahid fled again before he could be tried there but was sentenced to death in his absence. He was eventually extradited from Bahrain last year – the first time anyone has been sent back to the UK from there. Judge Paul Worsley told Wahid: “You are an intelligent but devious and manipulative man. “There is indication of significant physical suffering before her death. “You callously concealed her body in a suitcase.” Kama, 28, lived her life “like Holly Golightly”, the fun-loving Audrey Hepburn character in the 1961 film Breakfast At Tiffany’s, the court heard. She was on a week-long visit to London from Canada when she was attacked as she stayed in Wahid’s brother’s flat in Marble Arch, central London. She was repeatedly stabbed in the back and her throat was slashed before she was taken to an airport car park on the Heathrow Express from Paddington station. She was found soon after the suitcase was spotted on a trolley. But before the aspiring cabaret singer and dancer could be traced back to the flat, Wahid had flown out from the same airport. Adrian Darbishire, prosecuting, said Wahid had been seen on CCTV carrying the “very heavy” suitcase on the train. The next morning, he had shaved off his moustache and left the UK for Beirut where extradition was not possible. But Darbishire said he could not escape “the long arm of Scotland Yard” as detectives tracked him to Bahrain. DNA from the body linked him to Kama, whose blood was found on carpets and skirting boards. Kama had been due to fly home on Sunday and her family alerted police when she failed to turn up at Montreal airport. Darbishire said: “She was a vivacious and attractive young woman who had a number of rich admirers. “There was something of the Holly Golightly about her and her friends. “Often she would be out at nightclubs and casinos until the early hours of the morning with male and female friends.” But Wahid, on the other hand, was “neither rich or attractive to Fatima Kama”. Wahid refused to take part in the trial and turned down legal representation in the “mistaken belief” that he could abort the trial, the judge said. Crime guardian.co.uk
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Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani said the militant outfit didn’t kill Burhanuddin Rabbani, killed by a suicide bomber last month The commander of Afghanistan’s most notorious militant outfit, the Haqqani network, has denied playing a part in the assassination of President Hamid Karzai’s main peace envoy two weeks ago. “We haven’t killed Burhanuddin Rabbani,” Sirajuddin Haqqani said in an audiotape message delivered to the BBC Pashto service, referring to the peace envoy killed by a suicide bomber in Kabul on 20 September. It was the first public pronouncement by the Haqqanis on an issue that has triggered a fresh war of words between Pakistan and Afghanistan and killed off near-term hopes of starting peace talks to end the conflict. On Monday Islamabad lashed out at Afghan accusations that its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy service engineered the assassination to control the barely-nascent Taliban peace process. “Instead of making such irresponsible statements, those in positions of authority in Kabul should seriously deliberate as to why all those Afghans who are favourably disposed towards peace and towards Pakistan are systematically being removed from the scene and killed,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement . Afghan investigators allege that Rabbani’s assassin was a Pakistani whose mission had been controlled from the western Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Taliban “Quetta shura” is allegedly based. If true, that would discount the role of the Haqqani network, which operates further east along the lawless border. Nonetheless, the Haqqanis remain a major point of contention between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US. Two weeks ago the outgoing US military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, caused consternation with allegations that the Haqqanis were a “veritable arm” of the ISI. He hinted that the ISI had directed a daring guerrilla assault on the US embassy in Kabul on 13 September, as well as a giant truck bomb three days earlier that wounded 77 US soldiers at a base south of Kabul. But in recent days the White House and State Department have rowed back on Mullen’s comments, saying that while the ISI has allowed the Haqqanis to operate from Pakistani soil there is no evidence that Pakistani spies directed the embassy assault. The furore has left Pakistan more estranged than ever from its Afghan neighbours and its putative American allies. A senior Pakistani intelligence official insisted to the Guardian that the Haqqanis operate from Afghan soil, echoing comments Sirajuddin Haqqani recently made in an interview from Reuters. But he said he admitted that Haqqani’s father, the elderly Jalaluddin who founded the militant network in the 1980s, is resident in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal belt. Jalaluddin is seriously ill and living in the town with relatives, the Pakistani official said. He did not offer any proof to back up his assertion. A senior western official in the region confirmed that Haqqani senior was “bedridden”. But, he added, “I don’t know where that bed is.” Afghanistan Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Taliban Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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Firefighters tackle raging fire after explosion at unit in Newchapel, East Grinstead At least eight people have been injured following an explosion and major fire at an industrial estate in Surrey, emergency services said. The first alerts came in shortly before 11.30am about an explosion at Hobbs industrial estate, off Eastbourne Road, Newchapel, near East Grinstead, Surrey police said in a statement. It added: “Surrey police, Surrey fire and rescue service, South East Coast ambulance service and Surrey air ambulance are all in attendance at the scene.” The ambulance service said eight people were being treated for injuries, although she had no information yet as to how serious these were. Two helicopter ambulances and six ambulances were sent to the scene. The ambulance service had no information about widely circulated rumours that several people were missing. The fire service said 10 fire engines attended the blaze at the industrial estate unit. The operation was made more complex by the likely presence of gas cylinders, she said. An engineer working on the roof of the nearby London England Temple, a Mormon church, said he heard an initial explosion. “There was a massive, massive bang, a large bang, with a little after-bang but that was it,” he told the Press Association, asking not to be named. “And then just a few minutes after, that’s when smoke started to appear.” Footage shot by the local ITV news showed large plumes of smoke rising from the site. The location is south of London, near the M23 and M25. Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
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Firefighters tackle raging fire after explosion at unit in Newchapel, East Grinstead At least eight people have been injured following an explosion and major fire at an industrial estate in Surrey, emergency services said. The first alerts came in shortly before 11.30am about an explosion at Hobbs industrial estate, off Eastbourne Road, Newchapel, near East Grinstead, Surrey police said in a statement. It added: “Surrey police, Surrey fire and rescue service, South East Coast ambulance service and Surrey air ambulance are all in attendance at the scene.” The ambulance service said eight people were being treated for injuries, although she had no information yet as to how serious these were. Two helicopter ambulances and six ambulances were sent to the scene. The ambulance service had no information about widely circulated rumours that several people were missing. The fire service said 10 fire engines attended the blaze at the industrial estate unit. The operation was made more complex by the likely presence of gas cylinders, she said. An engineer working on the roof of the nearby London England Temple, a Mormon church, said he heard an initial explosion. “There was a massive, massive bang, a large bang, with a little after-bang but that was it,” he told the Press Association, asking not to be named. “And then just a few minutes after, that’s when smoke started to appear.” Footage shot by the local ITV news showed large plumes of smoke rising from the site. The location is south of London, near the M23 and M25. Peter Walker guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …WaPo Now Wonders If Michelle’s Target Photos Were Just Orchestrated PR with AP
October 3, 2011 No Comment
Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi is finding a lot of unusual circumstances — and unusual no-comments — around Michelle Obama's razzle-dazzle distraction outing to Target after her latest controversy over wearing $42,000 diamond bracelets. He found “there might have been something to the notion of White House orchestration.” Farhi's story did not note how the Post's own gossip columnists were eagerly orchestrated to coo over the photo (including on NBC). Is the AP granting the First Lady a publicity favor to curb the Michelle Antoinette echoes that will give them increased access later in return? If the official White House photographer had taken these shots, Farhi noted, the rest of the press would have seen them as promotional. Somehow they weren't if AP put their prestige on the credit line instead. Farhi lined up all the improbabilities: Neither the White House nor the Associated Press will say how AP photographer Charles Dharapak came to be the only news photographer present at the Alexandria Target to capture Obama’s shopping excursion. “All I can say is that it was the result of good source work on his part,” AP spokesman Paul Colford said, declining to elaborate on the sources or the work involved. [Cue the laugh track.] A spokeswoman for Michelle Obama, Kristina Schake, also declined to discuss how the photographs came about. In a statement, she said, “It is not uncommon for the First Lady to slip out to run an errand, eat at a local restaurant or otherwise enjoy the city outside the White House gates.” But it is uncommon, and perhaps unprecedented, for a single news organization to record such a trip. First ladies, such as Laura Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton, occasionally went shopping or on outings in Washington without anyone in the media tagging along. An official White House photographer often records private or personal moments involving the president and first lady. But news organizations are hesitant to publish such photos because they are considered promotional. Having a respected news organization such as the Associated Press take and distribute the photos, on the other hand, might increase their newsworthiness, considering that they were produced independent of the White House’s image-making machinery. As a practical matter, it’s difficult to know in advance where a first lady is headed without White House cooperation. Obama, unlike the president, doesn’t travel with a regular press retinue that records every public moment. The White House doesn’t “provide details about the first lady’s personal activities” to protect her privacy, said Semonti Stephens, a spokeswoman. Dharapak, who has declined interview requests, is a veteran news photographer assigned to the White House. He doesn’t regularly cover the first lady, though he was part of the press pool that shot pictures of her family trip to southern Africa in June. Moreover, Dharapak appears to have been fortunate to have been able to take photos inside the store. Corporate chains such as Target prohibit news photography on company-owned premises without prior permission. Camera crews that went to the Alexandria Target after the photos were released were allowed to shoot footage inside the store only with the company’s approval and only in designated areas for a limited time. Farhi began by noting how conservative talkers Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh found it suspiciously phony from the get-go. “What a phony-baloney plastic-banana good time rock-and-roll photo op,” said Limbaugh. Near the end, Farhi claimed Mrs. Obama has “taken an unusual amount of criticism for a first lady from the likes of Limbaugh and other conservatives,” and “the sniping was renewed” over the $42,000 bracelet story. Somehow, the reporter missed both the consistent conservative attention paid to Hillary Rodham Clinton and the way the media treated Nancy Reagan as Nancy Antoinette. Once again, those cooperative Post gossips skipped over the $42,000 bracelet story. Farhi's story ended by Farhi rebutting himself, finding a liberal journalism professor to insist that what looks obvious probably isn't obvious: Bob Steele, a journalism ethics professor at DePauw University in Indiana, says the available facts don’t quite warrant the conclusion that Mrs. Obama’s trip to Target was calculated to counter that criticism. “Journalists and news organizations should not allow themselves to be manipulated in the pursuit of truthful and fair news coverage,” he said, adding, “and, in general, they should be more open about revealing the methods and processes they use to gather the news,” such as disclosing any agreements made with a news source. But in this case, he said, “absent some cards that haven’t been turned face up on the table, there’s no evidence to suggest that the White House and AP were in cahoots.” Dear Professor Steele: when neither source will speak on the record as to how the photo shoot occurred, how is that not evidence to suggest someone's trying to deny cahoots? Someone likes the Democrats enough to look completely foolish and gullible in the Washington Post.
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