Obama's Media Bailout

If you're a member of the enchanted Obama media, don't worry about your newspaper going under or your network being mired in the ratings basement.

You can always count on Barack Obama for a job.

• Warren Bass: Former deputy editor of The Post's Sunday Outlook now serves as an adviser and speechwriter for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

• Jay Carney: The former TIME Magazine Moscow bureau chief and campaign chronicler (and husband of ABC's Claire Shipman) now serves as communications director for Vice President Biden.

• Linda Douglass: Former Congressional correspondent for CBS and ABC and writer/editor at National Journal left journalism last year to serve as traveling press secretary for the Obama campaign. She'll help guide the administration's communications efforts during this summer's battle over health care reform, working out of the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House.

• Peter Gosselin: The former Los Angeles Times reporter now writes speeches for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

• David Hoff: The Education Week reporter and blogger started yesterday on the communications staff at the Education Department.

• Beverley Lumpkin: A former Justice Department reporter/producer for ABC and CBS, she left journalism, worked for the Project on Government Oversight and joined DOJ last month as press secretary, turning sources into colleagues.

• Geoff Morrell: A holdover from the Bush administration, the former ABC newsman became spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2007.

• Rick Weiss: Former Washington Post science reporter left for the Center for American Progress and now serves as communications director and senior policy strategist for the White House Office of Science and Technology.

• Jill Zuckman: The former Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune works with Ray LaHood as communications director at the Department of Transportation.

You know what happens when Obama is out of office, right? Well, they all go back to high-ranking media positions as (ahem) objective reporters covering a Republican administration.

I don't think MSNBC has to worry about losing any of their overpaid talent. They're already doing their job for Boss Obama.

Media Bailout Picks Up Steam: More Reporters Hired by Democrats

Considering the sorry state of the mainstream media, is it any wonder these "journalists" are bailing out and making the lateral move to go work for Democrats? They've been stealing money from their employers by shilling for Democrats all these years so it's only logical they go work for their pals.

On Monday we noted that the Chicago Tribune's Jill Zuckman took a job in the Obama administration, which Michelle Malkin noted was at least the fourth reporter to join up with the Hopenchange bandwagon.

Well now the Politico notes another reporter has signed on with failed presidential candidate John Kerry.

On Tuesday, Cox’s Scott Shepard joined Sen. John Kerry’s office as a speechwriter, becoming the second journalist this year to take a job under the Massachusetts Democrat. Investigative reporter Doug Frantz is now chief investigator under the Kerry-helmed Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A week before Zuckman announced that she’s headed for Obama’s Transportation Department, her Tribune colleague Peter Gosselin signed on as speechwriter for Obama’s treasury secretary, Tim Geithner.

In December, Jay Carney relinquished his perch as Time’s Washington bureau chief to become Vice President Joe Biden’s communications director. Warren Bass left the Washington Post’s Outlook section to write speeches and advise Dr. Susan Rice at the United Nations. Daniel W. Reilly left Politico to become communications director for Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) Linda Douglass left the National Journal for the Obama campaign back in May, and is expected to become assistant secretary for public affairs in the department of Health and Human Services.

On Monday, Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism published a report on “The New Washington Press Corps,” grim statistics confirming the high rate at which regional newspapers are shuttering their D.C. bureaus while niche and foreign outlets grow.

Of the journalists flocking to government jobs, Pew Project Director Tom Rosenstiel says: “There’s no mystery here, and I don’t think the key to this is ideological as much as economic. The newspaper industry, in Washington in particular, is suffering mightily.”

So instead of propaganda disguised as news well get propaganda disguised as news releases.

Change!

Frantz isn’t alone in downplaying the partisan aspect of his new job. Maybe it’s based on a lifetime of non-partisan conditioning, but many of the reporters who’ve made the leap to government seem hesitant to admit that they’re no longer impartial observers.

“This is a Democratic administration; we’re obviously on that side of the aisle, but I don’t see this as a partisan job at all,” Carney told the Times a couple weeks back.

Carney told the Times that he had “an affinity” with Biden and Obama, but that it didn’t influence his coverage at the newsweekly. Time staffers have told Politico that they could never tell Carney’s politics during the 2008 race.

“I didn’t even know Jay was a Democrat,” Time’s Joe Klein said.

Clueless Joe was apparently the last to know. Memo to Klein: The whole world knew Carney was a Democrat. Are you really that stupid or are you just a bad liar?

Do these people think we're all complete idiots, unable to notice when media hacks are biased? It's so painfully obvious, which is why the media is in such dire straits. Their downfall began long before the economic downturn, so blaming it on the economy is just a weak copout.