News Cycle

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn talked about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama campaign’s successful efforts to control the media and bypass the editor’s filter.

“Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, that a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. … Making the press cover what we were saying.

“One of the reasons we did so many of the [Obama's chief campaign manager] David Plouffe 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.”

Dunn, who is the key figure in the Obama administration’s current battle with Fox News, was speaking at a Jan. 12, 2009, event focusing on Obama’s media tactics and hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, which promoted collaboration between the United States and the Dominican Republic.

This video was uncovered by World Net Daily, which has been criticized by the left. The video itself isn’t news because its nine months old, nor is it news that a political candidate will try to control the media. But it is rare to see a candidate’s communication director publicly describe the campaign’s efforts in such detail.

It’s also surprising to see Dunn warn that anything you say can and will be posted on YouTube.

The federal government is prepared to do whatever it takes, including raising taxes, in order to revive the economy, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on his Sunday morning news show this morning.

POLITICO reports the conversation in this transcript:

STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you believe that passing health care is central for getting the deficit under control. But independent analysts say even with that you are going to need to find new government revenues. The former deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman said it is no longer a matter of whether tax revenues should increase but how. Is he right?

GEITHNER: George it is absolutely right and very important for everyone to understand we will not get this economy back on track, recovery will not be strong enough to sustain unless we can convince the American people that we’re going to have the will to bring these deficits down once recovery is firmly established. Remember we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. The cumulative consequences of the policies this country pursued over the last eight years left us with $6 million of more debt than we would have had by making a bunch of commitments to cut taxes and add to spending without paying for those. We are not going to be able to afford to do that. And it is very important that people understand that. Our first priority now though is to get this economy back on track, make sure this financial system is repaired. Without that, we’re not going to get our deficits under control and the necessary path to fiscal responsibility, the necessary path to getting this country living within our means again is not just health-care reform, to bring down those costs, but we’re going to a range of other things and that’s going to be a very difficult challenge for this country. We can do this, it just requires the will to act.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Including new revenues?

GEITHNER: Well, we’re going to have to look at – we’re going to have to do what’s necessary. Remember the critical thing is people understand that when we have recovery established, led by the private sector, then we have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. We have to bring them down to a level where the amount we’re borrowing from the world is stable at a reasonable level. And that’s going to require some very hard choices. And we’re going to have to do that in a way that does not add unfairly to the burdens that the average American already faces.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s the dilemma, isn’t it?

GEITHNER: That is the dilemma.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Because when you look at health-care reform again – I know you believe it’s going to bend the cost curve over time. But the Congressional Budget Office says, at best, the health-care reform plans out there are going to be deficit-neutral over the next 10 years. So to bring the deficits down, there is not enough money in the discretionary budget, we all know that. That means more revenues. The president has said that taxes won’t go up for any Americans earning under $250,000, but it doesn’t appear that he’s going to be able to keep that promise if you’re going to bring the deficits down.

GEITHNER: George, we can’t make these judgments yet about what exactly it’s going to take and we’re going to get there. But the very important thing, and no one is going to care about this more than the president of the United States, is for people to understand that we do not have a choice as a country, that if we want an economy that is going to grow in the future, people have to understand that we have to bring those deficits down. And it’s going to difficult – hard for us to do and the path to that is through health-care reform. But that’s necessary but not sufficient. We [are] going to do some other things too.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So revenues are on the table, as well?

GEITHNER: Again, we’re not at the point yet where we’re going to make a judgment about what it’s going to take. But the important thing…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’re not ruling it out, you can’t rule it out.

GEITHNER: I think what the country needs to do is understand we’re going to have to do what it takes, we’re going to do what’s necessary.

Patricia Murphy of Politics Daily had this little tidbit about how best to address Sen. Barbara Boxer:

At a sometimes contentious Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), had a request for Army Corps of Engineers division leader, Brigadier General Michael Walsh.

During a terse exchange, as Boxer pressed Walsh on why key improvements have not been made by the Corps to the New Orleans levee system nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina, she asked, "Could you do me a favor? Could you say ’senator’ instead of ‘ma’am? It’s just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title. I’d appreciate it."

The general’s response? "Yes, Senator."

---

News Cycle

President Barack Obama will unveil his proposal to further regulate the financial industry in his effort to avoid a repeat of the market meltdown we experienced last fall.

The New York Times has the 85-page proposal online. Stephen Labaton of the Times explains its reach:

The plan the president will formally announce on Wednesday would give the Federal Reserve greater supervisory authority over large financial institutions whose problems pose potential risks to the economic system. It would separately expand the reach of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to seize and break up troubled financial institutions. And it would create a council of regulators, led by the Treasury secretary, to fill in regulatory gaps.

In doing so, the plan seeks to give Washington the tools to police the shadow system of finance that has grown up outside the government’s purview, and to make it easier for regulators to head off problems at large, troubled institutions or take control of them if they fail.

The Fed is the big winner in this proposal, but blogger Matthew Goldstein asks, who will the Fed be accountable to in this new order?

Now this is not meant to knock the job the Fed has done in the current financial crisis. In many respects, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke should be applauded for showing a willingness to improvise and come up with creative solutions for trying to limit the damage to the banking system and the economy. But throughout the crisis, Benanke & Co. have shown an utter disdain for transparency and full disclosure.

A good illustration of this is the contracts the NY Fed signed last fall with investment advisor Blackrock to manage the distressed assets the Fed acquired from AIG, the hobbled insurance giant. The contract between the NY Fed and Blackrock for managing the CDOs that AIG insured and the Fed took off the banks’ hands is 37 pages. But a good number of those pages are blank –- some 13 page to be exact.

And what is spelled out on these blank pages? Oh, just a few minor details like the fees paid to Blackrock, the firm’s potential CDO conflicts and the firm’s key personnel managing the assets. To be clear, this information isn’t totally secret. All this information has been disclosed to the NY Fed. It’s just that Fed officials have seen fit to keep this information secret from the public.

But if you’re counting on this veil of secrecy to be lifted by the Obama administration when it unveils its regulatory overhaul plan on Wednesday —- think again. The architect of the financial regulatory overhaul is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who just happened to head the NY Fed when these contracts with Blackrock were signed.

Over the next five years, newspapers will lose $13 billion on the weight of dropping about 32 percent of its advertising revenue as digital technologies become increasingly widespread, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2009-2013 recently released report.

The report expects print advertising to fall the most from $36.7 billion in 2008 to $24.3 billion in 2013. Online advertising revenue is anticipated to decline over the next two years. PWC expects online ad revenue to grow to $3.7 billion in 2013 — a 2.5% increase when compounded annually from 2008.

The global entertainment and media market as a whole, including both consumer and advertising spending will grow by 2.7 percent compounded annually for the entire forecast period to $1.6 trillion in 2013. Initially, the report said, the industry should expect to see a 3.9 percent drop in 2009 and a mere 0.4 percent advance in 2010, with a period of much faster growth during the remaining period to 7.1 percent in 2013.

The report said PreicewaterhouseCoopers is expecting that this recession will last longer than previous ones because of a steeper downturn, and that the impact on consumer spending will be much steeper than in the past. However the economic downturn does not change the underlying drivers for digital migration and will more likely influence their pace and power and hence the timing of industry change. In short, making it more difficult to hide from the digital migration, the report said.

During the period under review, the switch to digital will drive divergences in revenue performance between different segments and geographies. Change will impact the managing of brands, characters, titles and talent across distribution platforms supported by new commercial models.

Marcel Fenez, global leader entertainment and media practice officer for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said, “In some ways this could be called ‘the perfect storm.’ Inside every cloud is a silver lining and in this case, a digital one. Companies who grasp the opportunities which are appearing in this fast changing marketplace and are agile enough to adapt their business models will be able to take full advantage of the potential and new revenue models as they emerge.

“In previous years we have talked about the Net Generation and how their demands are driving the industry towards new business models,” Fenez said. “Interestingly, in this “income elastic” climate where spending power has to stretch even further than before, this younger generation is now exerting influence over older generations who are, in turn, taking a growing interest in new and emerging platforms. End-user spending through digital/ mobile platforms accounted for 23.4 percent of the overall consumer/end-user/ access market in 2008 and we expect this to account for 78 percent of total growth during the next five years.”

Iran’s brutal crackdown on journalists and information that began after the announcement of the disputed presidential election results is continuing and getting worse as journalists are being rounded up and arrested, reports Reporters sans frontières, whose press release and report are the sources of this post. Additional censorship measures have been adopted as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tries to suppress media coverage of fraud allegations.

“Independent sources of news and information find it very hard to make their voice heard now in Iran because of the censorship,” Reporters sans frontières said. “The authorities are tightening their grip on all news media and means of communication that could be used to dispute Ahmadinejad reelection ‘victory’. They are doing everything possible to limit coverage of the consequences of the election fraud.”

The advocacy agency reiterates its appeal to the international community not to recognise the results of the presidential election first round held on June 12.

“A democratic election is one in which the media are free to monitor the electoral process and investigate fraud allegations but neither of these two conditions has been met for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supposed reelection,” the agency said. “We urge the international community, especially European countries, not to recognise the results announced by the authorities as long as the electoral process is subject to censorship. An election won by means of censorship and arrests of journalists is not democratic.”

The security services have moved into the offices of newspapers where they are reading articles and censoring content. Mehdi Karoubi, one of the candidates, referred to the censorship in a press release. “I cannot even publish my release in my newspaper Etemad Meli,” he said.

The newspaper’s front page shows a photo of Ahmadinejad at a rally with columns left blank because of editing by the censors. The newspaper Velayat in the province of Qazvin (north of Tehran) has been suspended for publishing a cartoon of Ahmadinejad.

Even governmental news sources have been targeted in the crackdown. Four interior ministry officials have been arrested for given results that were different from those announced by Ahmadinejad’s allies, Reporters sans frontières said.

Four pro-reform newspapers have been closed or prevented from criticizing the official election results following a warning from Tehran prosecutor general Said Mortazavi. Kalameh Sabaz, a daily owned by opposition presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi, had its distribution blocked and it was forced to change a front page announcing Mousavi’s victory. It has not been able to publish any issue since June 13.

Eleven Iranian journalists have been arrested since June 12. Reza Alijani, Hoda Sabaer and Taghi Rahmani were arrested on June 13. Alijani and Rahmani were released yesterday evening. Freelancer Kivan Samimi Behbani, the former editor of Nameh (“The Letter”), an independent monthly closed in 2005, and Ahamad Zeydabadi were also arrested and then released.

Abdolreza Tajik was arrested at midday yesterday at the headquarters of the newspaper Farhikhtegan by three men in plain-clothes. A member of the Human Rights Defenders Centre, Tajik has worked for many Iranian publications that have been closed by the authorities, including Bahar (closed in 2001), Hambastegi (closed in 2003) and Shargh (closed in 2008).

Five of the journalists arrested in the past few days are still detained. They include Said Shariti, the editor of the news website Nooroz, who is being held by the police, and Mahssa Amrabadi of the daily Etemad Melli. She was arrested at her home yesterday by intelligence ministry agents who came with a warrant for the arrest of her husband, fellow-journalist Masoud Bastani. He was not at home at the time.

Two women journalists working at the Mousavi campaign headquarters were physically attacked on June 12. The Mousavi campaign news centre was ransacked on June 13 by Ahmadinejad supporters, who destroyed its computers. The Qalam News agency operated out of this centre.

There is no word of about 10 other journalists who have either been arrested or gone into hiding.

Iran is also fighting against the Internet, controlling and blocking all news websites likely to challenge Ahmadinejad’s announced victory. Ten or so pro-opposition websites have been censored. Most of the world is getting its news out of Iran from Twitter and other Internet sites.

The censored websites include www.entekhab.ir/ (inaccessible since June 11), www.ayandenews.com/ (inaccessible since June 12), teribon.com/, the pro-reform sites khordadeno.com/, aftabnews.ir/index.php and ghalamesabz.com/, norooznews.ir (the news website of the pro-Mousavi Islamic Participation Party) and www.ghalamsima.com/ (which also supports the Mousavi campaign). And the women’s rights website www.we-change.org/ has been blocked for the 20th time.

The international websites YouTube and Facebook are hard to access, the journalism agency reports. The mobile phone network is being jammed. The service of the leading mobile phone operator, which is state controlled, has been suspended since 10 p.m. on 13 June. The SMS messaging network has been cut since the morning of June 12, preventing use of Twitter.

The blockage of the foreign media has been stepped up. In addition to the blocking of the BBC’s website, the Farsi-language satellite broadcasts of the VOA and BBC – which are very popular in Iran – have been partially jammed. The BBC reported that their Farsi broadcasts have been the target of significant jamming “coming from Iran” since 12:45 Greenwich Mean Time on June 12, and that the jamming has been getting steadily worse.

The authorities yesterday ordered the Tehran bureau of the Arab satellite TV news station Al-Arabiya closed for a week after it broadcast video of the first demonstration following the announcement of Ahmadinejad’s reelection.

Foreign journalists have been prevented from covering the demonstrations, some have been notified that their visas will not be renewed, and some have been the victims of police violence. A member of a TV crew working for the Italian station RAI and a Reuters reporter were beaten by police in the capital. A BBC TV crew was threatened by police at one point, but demonstrators chased the police away. The correspondents of the German TV stations ARD and ZDF were forbidden to leave their hotel on June 13. Reuters reports that its journalists are banned from leaving their office or taking pictures.

Two Dutch TV journalists working for Nederland 2 were arrested and expelled. Reporter Yolanda Alvarez of the Spanish television station TVE was deported together with her crew today.

Updated at 10 a.m., Eastern, June 17, to include China Daily’s account.

Take this for what it’s worth.

The official Korean Central News Agency announced today that the two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of Current TV, were detained in North Korean territory after crossing into the country illegally.

The women, tried in North Korea’s highest court earlier this month, “admitted and accepted” their punishment of 12 years’ hard labor for committing politically motivated “criminal acts,” the report said.

“The accused admitted that what they did were criminal acts committed, prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of the DPRK by faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it,” it said.

China Daily provided this account of the North Korean statement today:

The reporting team from Current TV crossed the frozen Tumen River dividing the DPRK and China three months ago and walked up the river bank – all the while recording their transgression, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

“We’ve just entered a North Korean (DPRK) courtyard without permission,” the Korean translation of their narration on the videotape said, according to KCNA. One of them picked up and pocketed a stone as a memento of the illegal move, the report said.

Two women – reporter Laura Ling and editor Euna Lee – were arrested in Kangan-ri in North Hamgyong Province, the report said. A third person, Current TV executive producer Mitch Koss, and their Korean-Chinese guide managed to flee, KCNA said.

Last Monday, Lee and Ling were sentenced in the DPRK’s top court to 12 years of hard labor for what KCNA called politically motivated crimes. They were accused of crossing into the DPRK to capture video for a “smear campaign” focused on human rights, the report said.

The DPRK refers to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Chinese diplomats have said that the pair were on the Chinese side of the Tunan River, which forms the border, on March 17 when North Korean guards abducted them. The two were working on a story about the human trafficking of women by North Korea.

If you have five minutes to spare today, read Melanie Kirkpatrick’s piece in today’s Wall Street Journal on the harsh conditions in a North Korean “re-education camp.”

Here are some excerpts:

North Koreans can end up in re-education camps for such crimes as listening to foreign radio broadcasts, secretly practicing a religion, or crossing the border to China in search of food. Inmates are subjected to forced labor and are required to memorize political tracts. They receive little food, no medical care and sometimes serve multiyear terms wearing the clothes in which they arrived at camp. I interviewed a woman who had been wearing high heels when she was arrested and had to bind her feet in rags when those wore out. Many prisoners die of abuse or malnutrition.

Political prisoners are held under even harsher conditions in kwan li so penal camps. The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates the number of political prisoners at 200,000; the State Department puts it at between 150,000 and 200,000. Political offenses include such crimes as sitting on a newspaper that contains a picture of dictator Kim Jong Il. Punishment is often collective and can extend to three generations of the offender’s entire family.

Shin Dong-Hyok may be the only person to have escaped from a kwan li so camp. Mr. Shin, now in his mid-20s and living in Seoul, was born and spent the first 22 years of his life in Camp No. 14, a so-called total control facility. In an interview at The Wall Street Journal’s headquarters in New York last year, Mr. Shin spoke of growing up. His formal education was limited to the rudiments of reading and writing. Because political prisoners are usually incarcerated for life, the camps don’t bother with political re-education; Mr. Shin said he didn’t even know who Kim Jong Il was until after his escape. Nor did he understand the concept of money until, after his escape, he walked through a market and noticed bits of colored paper being exchanged for food.

At 12 or 13 — he is unsure of the year in which he was born — he was forced to watch the executions of his mother, who was hanged, and his brother, who was shot. They had attempted to escape. Hoping to pry information out of him — Mr. Shin had none — camp officials bound the boy’s hands and feet, embedded a hook in his groin and dangled him over a fire. In the Journal’s conference room, Mr. Shin pulled up a leg of his trousers to show me the scars.

The Seattle Times completed its sale yesterday of Blethen Maine Newspapers, a media holding firm that includes the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, to a company doing business as MaineToday Media Inc.

The chief executive officer of MainToday announced no immediate changes, at least for now.

“There are no immediate changes with the exception that I am guessing somewhere in the next week we will be adding back some news space. Exactly how much I don’t know,” said Richard L. Connor, chief executive officer of MaineToday Media Inc.

Connor will become editor and publisher of the Press Herald and Sunday Telegram, as well as the Kennebec Journal in Augusta and the Morning Sentinel in Waterville. Included in the sale is The MaineToday websites and niche print publications.

This is a turnaround from last week when Connor said the organization might cut 100 jobs when the sale is completed.

Here is a video highlighting President Barack Obama’s press conference last night from the White House.