Obama Bans Reporters from New York Post, Washington Times, and Dallas Morning News

[darrels joy]

PURGE: SKEPTICAL REPORTERS TOSSED OFF OBAMA PLANE
Fri Oct 31 2008 08:39:55 ET

**Exclusive**

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.

MORE

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.


posted by Epaminondas at 100 PM
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2008/10/o...ters-your.html

[darrels joy]

Washington Times kicked off Obama plane
UPDATE, 11:41 a.m.

The Washington Times, which has covered the Barack Obama campaign from the start, was kicked off the Democrat's campaign plane for the final 72 hours of the race.

The Obama campaign informed the newspaper Thursday evening of its decision, which came two days after The Times editorial page endorsed Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama. The Times editorial page runs completely independent of the news department.

"This feels like the journalistic equivalent of redistributing the wealth, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars covering Senator Obama's campaign, traveling on his plane, and taking our turn in the reporter's pool, only to have our seat given away to someone else in the last days of the campaign," said Washington Times Executive Editor John Solomon.

"I hope the candidate that promises to unite America isn't using a litmus test to determine who gets to cover his campaign."

The Times formally protested the decision, noting that it has one of the top 20 largest newspaper Web sites in the country, distributes its print edition in the key battleground state of Virginia, and has had its stories repeatedly cited by Mr. Obama and other Democrats throughout the campaign.

"Sen. Obama himself demonstrated he appreciates the importance of The Washington Times and its news coverage. In June, he wrote a letter citing a Times' investigative project that highlighted government mistreatment of our veterans. Sen. Obama requested an investigation by Congress and the administration, both of which confirmed the problems and led to corrective action at the VA. In his August acceptance speech, Sen. Obama also prominently mentioned our interview with Sen. Phil Gramm and the now infamous comments about a 'mental recession' and a 'nation of whiners'," wrote Mr. Solomon in an e-mail to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Times reporter Christina Bellantoni, who has covered the Democratic campaign since 2007, is being asked to leave the campaign plane starting Sunday. In defending its decision, the Obama campaign said it respected Ms. Bellantoni's reporting and simply ran out of seats on the campaign plane for the finale because of high demand. It also noted that the Obama campaign is allowing some news media critical of the Democrat to travel, including Fox News.

"Unfortunately, demand for seats on the plane during this final weekend has far exceeded supply, and because of logistical issues we made the decision not to add a second plane. This means we've had to make hard and unpleasant for all concerned decisions about limiting some news organizations and in some cases not being in a position to offer space to news organizations altogether," wrote Obama campaign Senior Advisor and Chief Communications Officer Anita Dunn in an e-mail.

"There are simply no more seats on Senator Obama's plane," she added. "There are press seats available on Senator Bidens plane for travel this final weekend and The Washington Times is encouraged to include our vice presidential nominee in your coverage plans for this final stretch."

A Dallas Morning News reporter also was excluded from the Obama campaign plane after the newspaper's editorial department endorsed Mr. McCain. (I'm not sure about this because NY Post endorsed him. Joy )

"We were informed last week there wouldn't be room," Bob Mong, editor of The Dallas Morning News, said Friday. "We protested, we continue to protest. We believe that a paper of our size and stature ought to be on the plane. We noticed that they allowed some friendlier media on the plane."
The Dallas Morning News endorsed Mr. McCain in an editorial two weeks ago, but Mr. Mong said he could not prove the Obama campaign acted in reprisal.
"We don't have any evidence of that," Mr. Mong said. "We're obviously asking the question."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-plane-finale/

[darrels joy]

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's 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 told 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 every 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.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.c...ws-and-th.html