Selective Journalism---Today’s Liberal Media at its “Finest”
The “story’s” finally getting linked by the Drudge Report that President Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were caught making inappropriate/disparaging remarks about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a backroom at the G20 summit. According to Ynet News.com, there were still open microphones left on and connected to the two leaders. Reporters who still had their headsets on, (for immediate translation), over heard three minutes of conversation between Sarkozy and Obama after the two had retired to a private back room:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly told US President Barack Obama that he could not "stand" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that he thinks the Israeli premier "is a liar."
According to a Monday report in the French website "Arret sur Images," after facing reporters for a G20 press conference on Thursday, the two presidents retired to a private room, to further discuss the matters of the day.
The conversation apparently began with President Obama criticizing Sarkozy for not having warned him that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid in UNESCO despite Washington's strong objection to the move.
The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: "I cannot stand him. He is a liar." According to the report, Obama replied: "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!"
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But this is only half the story. Not only had two of the world’s most powerful men been caught in an honest conversation about their true feelings towards Netanyahu, “the media”, in their infinite wisdom had agreed to not publish the embarrassing conversation:
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The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that reporters present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the subject of the embarrassing comments.
A member of the media confirmed Monday that "there were discussions between journalists and they agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue."
He added that while it was annoying to have to refrain from publishing the information, the journalists are subject to precise rules of conduct.
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Tom Blummer at Newsbusters points out that the Associated Press must have also agreed to the “precise rules of conduct”, when they released three publications related to the summit, but chose not to include the two leaders backroom swarray: (check spelling)
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"Let's try to imagine that any journalist would agree to such a restriction or hesitate to violate it even if he or she did agree to it if a conversation like this involving a Republican or conservative, or really just about anyone other than Barack Obama would have occurred. Neither can I.
As partial evidence that the embarrassing comment blackout was honored, the three AP items from the summit (here, here, and here) contain no reference to what Ynet revealed.
The least the establishment press could do is stop calling themselves reporters and properly refer to themselves as stenographers."
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I think we could find stenographers a bit more accurate in their comprehension of the event. In this case, transparency is in the eye/ears of the beholder. Unless of course, you are a part of the selective media.
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Update: Allahpundit questions the validity of the story that has taken over four days now to hit the internet.
"I can buy that no one recorded it, and I can buy that some reporters would go so far into the tank that they’d sign a nondisclosure statement, but surely someone in the room would have found a scoop this juicy too irresistible and would have leaked it. The exchange between O and Sarkozy supposedly happened on Thursday; it took four days for news to break about an explosive “hot mic” exchange between the presidents of the United States and France about the prime minister of Israel? C’mon.
Anyone know if Arret is trustworthy? And if so, I want to know which reporters were in the room and refused to report."
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Perhaps Allahpundit missed the three articles that the Associated Press wrote, (linked by Newsbusters), that omitted the backroom conversation.
Links to inbed into post:
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/07/uh-oh-obama-sarkozy-caught-on-open-mic-grumbling-about-netanyahu/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4145266,00.html
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2011/11/07/amazing-journos-agreed-not-publish-obama-sarkozy-snipes-about-bibi
More to come......................
(note: this post will be edited for clarity)
