Several significant US news organizations reject the Department of Justice’s proposal to discuss off-the-record ‘new guidelines’ in light of the reporter wiretapping scandal. Last week President Obama urged the DOJ to search a consensus with the media.
Major news outlets, including Associated Press, the New York
Times and the Huffington Post refused to attend the DoJ
‘reconciliation’ meeting on the current rules governing federal
leaks investigations unless it is fully recorded and could be
transformed into news.
President Obama appointed the US Attorney General Eric Holder to
conduct meetings with news organizations, including internet
media outlets, radio stations, TV channels, wire services, and
media associations concerning new media guidelines.
To begin with, Holder plans to gather bureau chiefs of
Washington-based national news organizations within next two
days. Experts from government agencies in intelligence and
investigation are to attend the meeting as well.
But the outcry raised by the scandal with the DoJ secretly
recording phone calls of Associated Press reporters and gathering
emails of a Fox News journalist made the proposed hush-hush
dialogue unacceptable for insulted media outlets.
All hell broke loose on May 13 when the president of the
Associated Press Gary Pruitt officially protested to Holder over
the department’s broad surveillance of more than 100 individual
reporters’ phone conversations. The AP called the ongoing
monitoring a “massive and unprecedented intrusion.”
“It isn’t appropriate for us to attend an off-the-record
meeting with the attorney general,” New York Times Executive
Editor Jill Abramson announced in a statement. “Our Washington
bureau is aggressively covering the department’s handling of leak
investigations at this time.”
AP media relations manager Erin Madigan White even threatened DoJ
that, should the meeting not be recorded, the news outlets will
come together and share their point of view as to how DoJ media
regulation should be updated in an open letter. But if the DOJ
agrees to record the event, AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll
will attend it, White said.
Moreover, AP expects its attorneys to attend any future meetings
on the legal specifics between the attorney-general’s office and
media lawyers.
“Evidently, there will be a future session with department
officials on the substance of how the law should be applied in
leak cases and I am hopeful that our counsel, David McCraw, will
be able to participate in that meeting,” Jill Abramson said
in a statement to The Huffington Post.
According to a tweet by the Huffington Post’s Senior Media
Reporter Michael Calderone, the HP will also not attend the
meeting unless there is a record.
At the same time POLITICO Editor-in-Chief John Harris will attend
this week’s private meeting with Holder, as well as the
Washington Post’s representative.
The meetings, aimed at restoring the trust of the US media
community in the government security agencies, are scheduled to
take place within weeks.
Obama is waiting for recommended media policy changes from
Holder, empowered to report directly to the president on
recommended media policy, by July 12.
This article originally appeared on: RT