Report: Obama brings chilling effect on journalism
By BRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government's aggressive prosecution
of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling
effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a
report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama
administration.
The Committee to Protect
Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid
the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions of
government sources and seizures of journalists' records. Usually the
group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad.
Leonard
Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the
30-page analysis entitled "The Obama Administration and the Press." The
report notes President Barack Obama came into office pledging an open,
transparent government after criticizing the Bush administration's
secrecy, "but he has fallen short of his promise."
"In
the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are
increasingly afraid to talk to the press," wrote Downie, now a
journalism professor at Arizona State University. "The administration's
war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most
aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of
the editors involved in The Washington Post's investigation of
Watergate."
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