PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2016-07-15 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • You Had a Hunch the News System Was Rigged? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • The list widely reproduced via social media and email in 2016 purportedly documented several prominent media figures who had familial ties to the Obama administration. Although the list may have been mostly accurate at the time it first appeared, many of the persons identified in it have changed job positions since then: Ian Cameron and Susan Rice were married in 1992. Although Rice (a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations) is still the U.S. National Security Advisor for the Obama administration, Cameron stepped down from his position with ABC News in 2010. David Rhodes became the youngest network news president in history when he was tapped to head CBS News in 2011, having previously served as Vice President of News at Fox News and the head of television operations for Bloomberg. His brother, Ben Rhodes, started working as a speech writer for Barack Obama in 2007 and is currently Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting. Claire Shipman is a correspondent for the ABC program Good Morning America. Jay Carney took over from Robert Gibbs as White House Press Secretary for the Obama administration in 2011, but he resigned from that position in June 2014 and now works for online retailer Amazon as the senior vice president of Worldwide Corporate Affairs. Matthew Jaffe worked as a reporter for ABC News and the Spanish language broadcast television network Univision during the 2012 presidential campaign, but he has since moved on and is currently the Director of Communications at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Katie Hogan joined Barack Obama's political operation in February 2007 (the week before the official kick-off of his first campaign for the White House), serving as a traveling press assistant, a White House press wrangler, and deputy press secretary. But she, too, has since left her position in the Obama administation, stepping down in 2016 to become the new chief of Organizing for Action, a non-profit group that grew out of Barack Obama's reelection campaign. Ben Sherwood has been affiliated with network news for nearly three decades, serving as a producer of ABC News' Primetime, a producer of NBC's Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, executive producer of ABC's Good Morning America, and President of ABC News in New York. Sherwood no longer holds that last position, having moved up in January 2015 to become the President of Disney-ABC Television Group and Co-Chairman of Disney Media Networks. Ben Sherwood's sister, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, has served as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs, as the Coordinator for Defense Policy, Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Arms Control, and (currently) as the United States Deputy Secretary of Energy for the Obama administration. Virginia Moseley holds a prominent position at CNN, but she is not the network's president: she is currently the cable news network's Washington Deputy Bureau Chief and Vice President. Thomas Nides was one of two U.S. Deputy Secretaries of State (for Management and Resources) under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 2011 to 2013, but he has since rejoined the Morgan Stanley Global financial services firm as a Vice Chairman. Although items such as this one have criticized the Obama administration for having an incestuous relationship with the media, they do not necessarily prove that the media is in Obama's pocket. In June 2013, the Washington Post published an article defending how news media operate honestly even when its members have ties to politicians: The Post article also highlighted that news outlets are aware of these potential conflicts and employ several methods for mitigating them: (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url