John Fund, WSJ:
Barack Obama may be swimming in campaign cash, but he still wants to charge reporters for the privilege of covering his Election Night activities at Grant Park in Chicago.Crain’s Chicago Business reports that Mr. Obama’s campaign sent a memo saying the price for access to the media area, where electrical power will be available, will be between $715 and $1,815 depending on how many phone lines and power outlets are granted. Reporters who want to cover Obama campaign officials and interview them will have to gain access to a “Press File” tent for an additional $935 per person for admission.
Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, called the price list “an outrageous pay-to-play plan that caters to national elite [media] outlets.” She noted that many reporters don’t have extensive phone and electrical needs and yet will be priced out of covering Mr. Obama on Election Night.
Mr. Obama will certainly be getting the lion’s share of votes from reporters who cover his campaign, but that doesn’t make his media operation popular. “There is an arrogance there that I hope doesn’t carry forward to any Obama White House,” one reporter who travels frequently with the candidate told me. “But all the signs of trouble are already there.”
Ah, yes. The audacity of Hope.
As the media continues to (unfairly) characterize Governor Palin as inaccessible, the Obama / Biden team has turned media coverage into a capitalist venture — one in which they gentrify the coverage, pricing out all but the “big” media outlets, the overwhelming majority of whom proven themselves quite in the bag for Barack.
Too late, though, some are beginning to notice that the royalty of Obamalot, having gotten what they want from these startstruck, ink-stained groupies — gushing wannabe insiders to the new court who have shaped the news cycle in every possible way to aid their once and future King — are increasingly given to treating them with the disdain that one holds for such mewling sycophants who haven’t an ounce of self-respect.
Having served their purpose, the useful idiots will now have to pay just like the rest of us.
It’s a setup that CNN might recognize, having dealt with another Hussein for access; but it is one that signals another “progressive” baby step toward how the media will be controlled by an Obama administration — the clear subtext being that the administration will obliquely set the rules and conditions for access to the One, and that those media outlets that are found either hostile or insignificant to his Majesty had best clean up their act should they wish to survive.
In short, Obama plans to use the election night activities as a primer and object lesson on how the media will be used, manipulated, and tolerated in a “progressive” America where the tyranny of facts and the fallacy of proof should never force us to lose sight of the glorious ends for which any means necessary are not only permissible, but are in fact encouraged.
One can’t have a Utopia without a mass of willing utopians. And the best way to achieve such a logistical success is to coerce the utopianism out of those reluctant to accept it.
Frightening, sure. But a civilized step up from the earlier Ayers’ plan to achieve those ends by southwestern re-education camps; Chinese, Soviet, and North Vietnamese military support; and of course, 25 million enemies of the state “eliminated.”
No, this is fascism with a smile and a wink — though it will occasionally break a few legs and bury a few bodies just to keep the proles honest.
(h/t Terry H)
****
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 10/25 @ 10:50 am #
I hope those out of town reporters have an expense account to take care of the inevitable “permits”, “fees” and “service charges” they’re going to encounter.
Stuff like paying some guy from the electrician’s union a hundred bucks to plug your laptop into a power outlet, or switch an Ethernet cable from one computer to another.
It’s the Chicago Way. Cash only, plz.
Comment by Darleen on 10/25 @ 10:53 am #
SBP in the Pub has pointed to how an O! admin reacts to less than adoring, anklelicking questions from interviewers.
“Acceptable” media in this country under the O/Ayers/Dems administration is going to solidify like Mike Moore’s arteries after a night at Bob’s All You Can Eat Pork Ribs and Fried Steak Joint.
Comment by happyfeet on 10/25 @ 10:55 am #
The news fags wanted a recession I say we give them one.
Comment by Sdferr on 10/25 @ 10:59 am #
I just paid a visit to Maj John’s site and he posts his “Obligatory Crossed Swords Post“, one pic of himself under the swords on Saddam’s old parade ground and another close-up of one of the sculptures in extreme disrepair. He ends his post with a quote from Shelly’s “Ozimandias”: “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.” and urges this reflection on “…every Kim Il Sung, Bashir Asad and Fidel Castro…”.
There is someone else I can think of who may believe he is coming into his great moment of glory who would do well to stop to think what it is he shapes and what it is he will leave behind.
Comment by cranky-d on 10/25 @ 11:05 am #
My understanding is that the press usually looks out for their own interests. Perhaps that means they will push this story so that people will come to understand the arrogance that is O!.
Yeah, I know, I’m dreaming.
Comment by Carin on 10/25 @ 11:13 am #
Cranky, I doubt it since this story has been out for a couple of days. All the major and minor outlets have to already know about it and how many have been complaining?
Comment by Darleen on 10/25 @ 11:19 am #
Carin
They won’t complain too loudly, because 1-they still have to get O! across the finish line 2- they hope that help will give ‘em a “buy” into the O! admin
Comment by guinsPen on 10/25 @ 11:49 am #
And the best way to achieve such a logistical success is to coerce the utopianism out of those reluctant to accept it.
Also over at the Pub, commenting on dicentra’s plea for Passive Resistance, William of Strange says:
Comment by geoffb (JARAIP) on 10/25 @ 11:56 am #
The Obama Administration, if it happens, will use access and fees to help along the consolidation of the media and mold it into it’s version of Pravda, Izvestia and Tass.
Maybe they will have a few defenestrations as an homage to the originals.
Comment by Patrick on 10/25 @ 12:31 pm #
No, you’re misunderstand the purpose of money extraction. It’s being taken from those big filthy rich media organizations, and redistributed to the right people. The anointed one will use it to buy fishing poles and bait, to teach the unfortunate how to fish (as opposed to being spent on bundles of Arthur Treacher’s coupons…)
Comment by TmjUtah on 10/25 @ 12:55 pm #
No reason not to get a head start on which media outfit gets the franchise; it will be easier for O!’s administration to manage one or two networks than a whole gaggle of them like there is now.
Even with the new fairness laws, it will be in the interest of networks to decide NOW to abandon all pretense of ethic or independence, now that they Leader is about to assume power.
They broke it. They get to buy it, now. Our election process.
Comment by TmjUtah on 10/25 @ 12:58 pm #
Journalism. Well, we don’t buy buggy whips or parasols any more, now do we?
If those useless enablers had a shred of integrity and one testicle to share between themselves, they’d all sign on to a joint letter rejecting the “offer” in front of them. ABC at the top, the Zimbabwe News Collective at the bottom.
And they’d suspend campaign coverage until they got an answer.
But they won’t. I wonder what the view is like from on top of the tiger?
Comment by Bob Reed on 10/25 @ 1:09 pm #
I’m sure that maggots like Kos will be getting complimentary access to the shindig…
I hope they enjoy themselves, becuase the useful idiots may have a short shelf life in an O! administration…
I wonder who’ll play the part of Robespierre..?
Comment by SDN on 10/25 @ 2:27 pm #
More along the lines of who will play Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty. Stirring rhetoric and a bucket of boiling hot tar gets you a lot further than just stirring rhetoric.
Comment by dre on 10/25 @ 3:19 pm #
Don’t forget the feathers.
Comment by Andrew the Noisy on 10/25 @ 3:46 pm #
“There is an arrogance there that I hope doesn’t carry forward to any Obama White House,†one reporter who travels frequently with the candidate told me. “But all the signs of trouble are already there.”
They can be taught!
Comment by poppa india on 10/25 @ 4:31 pm #
#16 ” One reporter” is a racist, or will find himself described as one if he doesn’t watch his mouth.
Pingback by Steynian 275 « Free Canuckistan! on 10/25 @ 6:02 pm #
[...] OBAMAISM: “is fascism with a smile and a wink  though it will occasionally break a few legs and [...]
Comment by mojo on 10/25 @ 10:41 pm #
Jacques DeMolay, thou art again avenged!
Pingback by Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate’s Cove — Barracuda Patrol! on 10/26 @ 8:50 am #
[...] good to be the king of Zombies. protein wisdom has the [...]