Without checks and balances, media is free to control the political process and effectively donate hundreds of millions of dollars to Democrat candidates-Pat Caddell, 9/21/2012

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9/21/2012, “The Audacity of Corruption,” Transcript, Accuracy in Media Conference, Speaker: Pat Caddell

From Q and A:…

(Caddell): “These individual reporters—let me tell you something about the press: Reporters become reporters and don’t enter the political fray because, basically, they can’t stand the heat. That’s my experience. You ever watch reporters under attack in a public venue and so forth? They wilt like–they melt like ice on the equator. The fact is that they need to be called out. Their organizations need to be called out. Ezra Klein still writes for The Washington Post? I mean, this is unbelievable! They had a secret operation group, “Journo” group, online, coordinating how they would promote Obama, and how they would attack Republicans—and he’s still there? But nobody calls out the publisher, or the editor, or whatever—there is no effort here—or calls him….

We have a different press now. They have now made the decision they will control the political process. They are serving—with the hundreds of millions of dollars that the networks and these newspapers are, in effect, contributing—in-kind contributions to candidates in the Democratic Party. 

That’s the legal issue that I would have been exploring.  I mean, I would begin to put the heat on.

But the Republicans never said a word.”…

From Caddell transcript: “There was an implicit bargain in the First Amendment, the press being the only institution, at that time, which was in our process of which there was no checks and balances. We designed a constitutional system with many checks and balances.

The one that had no checks and balances was the press, and that was done under an implicit understanding that, somehow, the press would protect the people from the government and the power by telling—somehow allowing—people to have the truth. 

That is being abrogated as we speak, and has been for some time. It is now creating the danger that I spoke to.”… 



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