Roberta Baskin, a veteran of CBS News, ABC News, PBS and Washington,
DC's ABC affiliate, with a stint at the Center for Public Integrity
mixed in, "will join the Department of Health and Human Service's
office of inspector general as a senior communications adviser in
mid-August," Washington Post "Federal Eye" blogger Ed O'Keefe reported [1]
late Monday. Specifically, O'Keefe related, her job will be "to help
drum up media attention for the Health Care Fraud Prevention and
Enforcement Action Team, an HHS-Justice Department task force aimed at
combating Medicare and Medicaid fraud."
My list of journalists who have jumped to the Obama administration
- plus one who traveled through the revolving door from helping the
Obama campaign into a news media slot - is now up to thirteen. Not
counting Baskin: Three each revolved through CNN and the Washington
Post; two through ABC News; and one each via the Chicago Tribune, Los
Angeles Times, Newsweek and Time magazine.
For the full list, check the July 29 BiasAlert item: "Revolving Door from Journalism to Team Obama Now Up to a Dozen [2]."
She won't be lonely at HHS where the Assistant Secretary for Public
Affairs is ex-CBS News and ABC News Washington correspondent Linda
Douglass. O'Keefe observed that she's "the third
journalist-turned-public-servant that previously worked at both ABC and
CBS. The administration's health care spokeswoman-at-large Linda
Douglass and Justice Department spokeswoman Beverley Lumpkin also
worked for both networks."
The Politico's Michael Calderone provided [3] a brief rundown of her career, going back to the early 1990s:
Baskin's previous gigs include executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, senior Washington correspondent for NOW with Bill Moyers, senior investigative producer for the ABC News magazine 20/20, chief investigative correspondent for 48 Hours, ABC7 investigative reporter and contributor for the CBS Evening News.
After a couple of years running the Center for Public Integrity
starting in 2005, she returned to WJLA-TV channel 7 in Washington, DC
for a brief tenure. The screen shot is from a report she provided to
Good Morning America, in May of 2008, when she was with WJLA-TV.
-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center