WarSclerotic

Top Obama Aide: We are the Ventriloquists that ‘Shape the News’, Truth Revolt, Trey Sanchez, May 6, 2016

An interview in The New York Times with President Obama’s assistant and speech writer Ben Rhodes reveals chilling insight into an administration that has positioned itself as a ventriloquist to mainstream press outlets. 

Obama’s presidency happened to coincide with the dramatic shift in how people access news. As the newspaper print business began to crumble and more and more people turned to the Internet for their news, the Obama administration was in the perfect position to seize and control the content that was published. And they did so unabashedly.

Seasoned journalists lost their jobs in droves and took with them decades of knowledge and experience. Replacing them was far cheaper labor: young 20-somethings who were very eager and willing, but had no knowledge of history. The perfect puppets for the Obama show.

Rhodes explains:

“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”

Based on the conversation with Rhodes and his assistant, Ned Price, the NYT goes on to detail just how “adept” the administration is “at ventriloquizing many people at once:”

The easiest way for the White House to shape the news, he explained, is from the briefing podiums, each of which has its own dedicated press corps. “But then there are sort of these force multipliers,” he said, adding, “We have our compadres, I will reach out to a couple people [and] I’ll say, ‘Hey, look, some people are spinning this narrative that this is a sign of American weakness’ …  and [then] I’ll give them some color, and the next thing I know, lots of these guys are in the dot-com publishing space, and have huge Twitter followings, and they’ll be putting this message out on their own.”

The NYT compared the old spin with the new:

This is something different from old-fashioned spin, which tended to be an art best practiced in person. In a world where experienced reporters competed for scoops and where carrying water for the White House was a cause for shame, no matter which party was in power, it was much harder to sustain a “narrative” over any serious period of time. Now the most effectively weaponized 140-character idea or quote will almost always carry the day, and it is very difficult for even good reporters to necessarily know where the spin is coming from or why.

Spin has always been a part of politics but this president is a master. In fact, spin is the way he started his presidency. Flashback to Obama’s former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn: she explained their press strategy leading up to Obama’s election in 2008:

“Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control…

“One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe [Obama’s chief campaign manager] videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it.”

Obama’s strategy has always been to make the press cover what he was saying. That’s why during his campaigns he preferred doing live interviews so his words couldn’t be edited.

The president’s Jedi mind trick as Hopey-One Kenobi: This isn’t the news you’re looking for. Move along.

This entry was posted on May 7, 2016 at 4:09 PM and is filed under All the spin that fits, Media, Obama administration. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: All the spin that fits, Media, Obama Administration