SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE

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The Obama campaign has decided to heave out three newspapers from its plane for the final days of its blitz across battleground states -- and all three endorsed Sen. John McCain for president!

The NY POST, WASHINGTON TIMES and DALLAS MORNING NEWS have all been told to move out by Sunday to make room for network bigwigs -- and possibly for the inclusion of reporters from two black magazines, ESSENCE and JET, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Despite pleas from top editors of the three newspapers that have covered the campaign for months at extraordinary cost, the Obama campaign says their reporters -- and possibly others -- will have to vacate their coveted seats so more power players can document the final days of Sen. Barack Obama's historic campaign to become the first black American president.

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Some told the DRUDGE REPORT that the reporters are being ousted to bring on documentary film-makers to record the final days; others expect to see on board more sympathetic members of the media, including the NY TIMES' Maureen Dowd, who once complained that she was barred from McCain's Straight Talk Express airplane.

After a week of quiet but desperate behind-the-scenes negotiations, the reporters of the three papers heard last night that they were definitely off for the final swing. They are already planning how to cover the final days by flying commercial or driving from event to event.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flashopp.htm

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@Woiyo9,

When did you post the story about McCain throwing reporters off his plane?

Hmm.. I guess you didn't..

Ok.. just in case you missed it
Dowd kicked off both McCain planes

At least Obama gave the reporters a weeks warning and a chance to make other arrangements. McCain banned Dowd the morning she was scheduled to fly with him.

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If woiyo can post from drudge, I think I can safely post from think progress, however, links are at the source for anyone to check out.

Quote:

McCain should know all about boycotting the media. Some examples:

" McCain canceled an appearance on CNN’s Larry King Live after CNN’s Campbell Brown conducted a tough interview with McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds about Palin’s foreign policy experience.

" Last month, the McCain campaign barred New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd from flying on both the McCain and Palin press planes after she wrote a negative column.

" McCain campaign officials barred Time’s Joe Klein from traveling with them, after he asked McCain an uncomfortable question about foreign policy.

" Campaign officials have repeatedly gone on air to bash journalists after tough interviews, saying that Katie Couric asked Palin “a series of trapdoor questions,” the New York Times “cast aside it’s journalistic integrity to advocate for the defeat of John McCain,” and demanded that the media treat Palin with “deference.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/29/mccain-boycott-media/

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@revel,

So what this tells me is that both candidates are sissy LALA girly men who can not handle criticism.

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@Woiyo9,

I went to the Dallas Morning News website and I can't find this story. I googled it and got lots of hits, but they were all quoting Drudge, so I searched it with Drudge omitted and got nothing. Is there any confirmation on this?

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@Woiyo9,

And it tells me that you are a partisan hack that doesn't care about both candidates as you try to smear only one with something BOTH are doing.

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Well, of course if McCain banned all reporters from newspapers that endorsed Obama, he'd be able to fly around in a Piper Cub.

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@Woiyo9,

Washington Times is the Moonie / Unificatiion Church paper, right? The media owned by the guy that was crowned as the Second Coming in March of 2004 at the Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., right?

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/06/21/moon/index.html

They should feel lucky to have been on the plan at all ... ever.

1 Reply

@squinney,

Yep, that's the one. Finally found the story from there here.

So, I guess they didn't want to ride with Biden?

1 Reply

@FreeDuck,

At least it wasn't in the air at the time.

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@Woiyo9,

Quote:

The Obama campaign has decided to heave out three newspapers from its plane for the final days of its blitz across battleground states -- and all three endorsed Sen. John McCain for president!

So what.

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SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE

So, when did they reach terminal velocity?

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@roger,

LOL.

I was assuming they landed the plane first.

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@Woiyo9,

Quote:

So what this tells me is that both candidates are sissy LALA girly men who can not handle criticism.

It's only a bigger version of the Ignore function isn't it?

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

I went to the Dallas Morning News website and I can't find this story. I googled it and got lots of hits, but they were all quoting Drudge, so I searched it with Drudge omitted and got nothing. Is there any confirmation on this?

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/10/the-dallas-morning-news-and-th.html?npc

The Dallas Morning News and the Obama campaign
9:29 AM Fri, Oct 31, 2008 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Ryan J. Rusak E-mail News tips

By now you may have seen the Drudge Report item indicating that the DMN and two other papers who endorsed John McCain are being booted off the Obama campaign. Here are the facts as we know them.

It's true that our reporter, Todd J. Gillman, has been told that there's no space for him after Saturday. Obama aides told the DMN last Saturday that the paper would lose its seat on the plane on Wednesday. Within a few hours, that moved to Friday. And by midweek, traveling press secretary Jen Psaki had told us that Saturday night's final flight would be the last leg available. We protested then and continue to do so now, arguing that a paper of the DMN's size and stature should be on-board.

But we don't have evidence that the newspaper's endorsement of Sen. McCain had any bearing on the campaign's decision to boot us from the plane. No one from the campaign ever mentioned it to Todd. (And for the record, he as a reporter, and I as the editor in charge of political coverage, had absolutely no input or knowledge of the endorsement. That's handled by a different department on a different floor. I didn't even know about the editorial board's choice until I read it in the paper a couple of Sundays ago.)

We think the Obama campaign's decision is to some degree more a function of limited seats, and while we're a large regional newspaper, we're not national and we're not in a swing state. We've been on the road with them at key moments, but we've not been along for the entire ride, like, say, The New York Times and The Associated Press.

For what it's worth, we've had the same trouble with the McCain campaign. One of our reporters dropped off earlier this week when space became an issue, and we're only getting back on with McCain tomorrow for the final weekend because they, unlike the Obama campaign, are adding a second plane.

That said, we've protested loudly and frequently with the Obama campaign. While we understand their decision, TDMN is one of the biggest papers in the South and Southwest, and over the years and in this campaign, we've demonstrated a strong commitment to campaign coverage. We believe very passionately in covering campaigns completely and aggressively, in being our readers' eyes and ears on the scene as much as possible. We let the campaign know in early October that we wanted to travel along for the duration of the campaign. We still hope they change their minds.

Plus, we're the only Southern or Southwestern paper that's been on board constantly through October, and if we get booted, there won't be any outside of New York, LA, Chicago, Washington and Boston.

The real problem is that the campaign does not want to add a second plane. Here's how this works: The campaign makes travel arrangements and bills journalists for the costs. Your share of the cost is based on the total cost being divvyed up among the number of journalists traveling. So if there's too many journalists for one plane but not quite enough for two, someone's not going to make the cut.

And it does seem true that the campaign is allowing for more friendly media. But that should come as no surprise - Sen. Obama hasn't done a press conference in more than a month, but he's given "exclusive" interviews to Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow and Mario Lopez. (Don't know this media titan? He's the host of "Extra," an entertainment news show, and a former star of "Saved By The Bell.") This should tell you something - Sen. Obama is sitting on a lead and doesn't want to risk aggressive questions by unbiased political reporters.

But for many readers, a lot of this is inside baseball. Here's what you need to know - over the next five days, The Dallas Morning News will bring you complete coverage of the campaign. Todd is a dedicated guy who can function pretty well on little sleep and a whiz at travel arrangements, so he'll hopscotch along behind the campaign if that's what it takes. But no matter what, we'll have robust news and analysis of the final stretch of this historic campaign.

UPDATE: We've asked the Obama campaign to clarify why we will soon no longer have a seat on their plane. Campaign spokeswoman Linda Douglass told our Todd Gillman that "we just had to make some last-minute decisions" because the candidate's wife, Michelle, is coming on board, meaning more space for her staff and the Secret Service.
"We had to make some very hard decisions that have absolutely nothing to do with your news organization, which is a terrific, professional news organization," Douglass said.

So why didn't they add another plane to accommodate more reporters? Douglass said that slows the campaign down and would have meant one less stop per day.

The News' recommendation of John McCain had nothing to do with our removal, Douglass insisted. "There are news organizations, as you look around you on the plane, whose editorial boards are never friendly to Senator Obama and whose coverage has been downright unfriendly, and they're on the plane." She didn't name names, but still on board are Fox News, considered to lean to the right, and the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial board is strongly conservative.

And I should probably point out here something that slipped my mind: The DMN recommended Obama in the primary. And again: TODD, HIS REPORTING COLLEAUGES, AND HIS EDITORS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH SUCH RECOMMENDATIONS.

The campaign has also stressed that they've tried to be helpful to reporters who can't travel with them, including by arranging ground travel and hotel rooms. And that's true, though it doesn't go to the logistical nightmare of trying to get in and out of airports commercially and flying into and out of small cities.

We're not complaining; we're big boys and girls. And there are benefits to being outside of the bubble, as they say, including more time to talk to real voters.

1 Reply

@Butrflynet,

You'll not stump these guys.

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Bad for the candidates, worse for the whiners!

On the 2006 presidencial election, the main left wing candidate banned the paper I work for (yes, folks, I'm a right-wing zealot, according to some dumbasses here in Mexico). Not only were we not invited in the planes. We were not allowed to jump into the campaign buses. Our reporter had to rent a car and follow the campaign trail.
Did we whine?
Not of course.
I don't know how many miles he travelled in open hostile conditions, but not a iota of complain was published.

A journalist should report the news, not be part of them. The troubles of a journalist while gathering the news are normal and usually irrelevant to the public, not a piece of news.

The Dallas Morning News did well in getting the story clear (lemme say it has hit the waves of international agencies). The other two papers have no prestige, so it doesn't matter.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE

So, when did they reach terminal velocity?

Probably when they hit the terminal.

0 Replies

SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE

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