If only there were an Obama scandal for journalists to cover.
Almost exactly two years after the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank ludicrously claimed “the media would love to have an Obama scandal to cover,” on Sunday’s MediaBuzz on FNC, veteran DC journalist Julie Mason encapsulated the attitude of the Washington press corps which has little interest in the IRS scandal, insisting that “every journalist in town would love if there was proof of a scandal, they would be galloping after it.”
Audio: MP3 clip [1]
The long-time White House correspondent for the Houston Chronicle (she also put in brief stints with the Washington Examiner and Politico.com), who now hosts the daily Press Pool radio show on Sirius-XM’s POTUS channel (bio [2]), was bewildered: “Where’s the proof of the crime?”
She maintained of the press corps: “They’re not trying to protect President Obama. That’s over.”
So, she’s admitting they were trying to protect him, but just aren’t any more. Three cheers for journalistic integrity!
Seconds later, reacting to fellow panelist Amy Holmes of TheBlaze.com, Mason saw no responsibility by reporters to uncover anything: “We don’t have subpoena power. It’s up to the lawmakers to find the proof. They have the power to do that.”
Not quite the posture of Woodward and Bernstein.
On the Sunday, June 29 MediaBuzz, hosted by Howard Kurtz, on FNC, Mason asserted:
All these hearings, all these investigations, where’s the proof of the crime? Howie, this morning, there were a hundred thousand stories on Google News about the IRS investigation. There’s a welter of coverage... but there’s no proof of a crime. And the coverage reflects that. Every journalist in town would love if there was proof of a scandal, they would be galloping after it. They’re not trying to protect President Obama. That’s over....
We don’t have subpoena power. It’s up to the lawmakers to find the proof. They have the power to do that.
From June of 2012: “WashPost’s Milbank Claims: ‘Media Would Love to Have an Obama Scandal to Cover [3]’”
— Brent Baker is the Steven P.J. Wood Senior Fellow and Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Follow Brent Baker on Twitter. [4]