Narrative Control: Woodward Gets a Warning from Gene Sperling

Posted on Comments

“Woodward, I think, leans to the left, but he is unafraid to call out the President of the United States when he’s lied to.”
— Stephen Dethrage, University of Alabama

Obama has been lying about the sequester, and when famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward blew the whistle, this made Woodward the demonized enemy. Anyone who disputes the Obama-approved narrative must be discredited, by any means necessary. Ben Smith at BuzzFeed reports:

The White House official whom Bob Woodward charged had crosssed a line by saying he would “regret” printing his version of a set of Washington negotiations was Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council, a source familiar with the exchange told BuzzFeed Wednesday.
The email from Sperling to Woodward, which Woodward read to Politico Wednesday, has transfixed Washington, with Republicans and some in the press charging that it embodies a White House lording it over a cowed press corps.
Woodward, Politico reported, called the top official — identified to BuzzFeed as Sperling — to tell him that he would question Obama’s account of negotiations leading to the “sequester” — automatic cuts set to take effect next month.
The aide “yelled at me for about a half hour,” Woodward said, and then sent a follow-up email that read, in part: “You’re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim.”

Instead of defending Woodward, other journalists are volunteering their assistance in attempting to discredit him, as Aleister at American Glob shows the shrieking reaction from Obama’s media sycophants.  This is shameful, and we should not be surprised that this beatdown on Woodward appears to have been orchestrated by Media Matters chief bully, Eric Boehlert:

Boehlert’s tactics are obvious. He wants to marginalize Woodward and his reporting out of the fear that Obama might actually be held responsible for a law he proposed, got passed, and signed into law.

Boehlert and his fellow thugs don’t care about truth. They care about partisan conformity and subservience. Becca J. Lower noticed that at least one young journalist still prefers the old-fashioned truth.

24 comments

  1. I think Woodward should feel insulted that they only rolled out a minor functionary like Sperling to threaten him.

  8. lol….waiting breathlessly for Dead Nixon’s comment on this one. I’m sure this isn’t the first time Mr. Woodward has been yelled at for a half hour or threatened.

  9. That’s probably like a walk on the beach for a guy like Woodward. And I think Dead Nixon’s still wrangling with Twitter at the moment (stuck in Gulag!)… His backup handle is @DeadDickInHell.

  14. Yglesias is, of course, front and center of the bootlicking media sycophants, desperately trying to outpace Ezra Klein for the coveted “Most Fawning Toady” award.

  18. Huh. I just figured these reporters are in so deep they would only get threats for coming back with an inaccurate polyp count. Did someone accidentally attempt real journalism?

Comments are closed.