Report: Obama Administration Most Secretive Since Nixon
Photo Credit: Washington TimesThe Obama White House’s war against leaks, and its penchant for secrecy and noted lack of transparency, are the worst “since the Nixon administration,” according to a major new study that relied on interviews from leading Washington reporters and news organization chiefs.
The report, released Thursday by the Committee to Project Journalists, found that reporters from many major media outlets consider the Obama administration the most closed-off in recent memory, and that there is not “any precedent” for its often hostile relationship toward the press.
More than 30 veteran reporters were interviewed for the piece, which was written by CPJ’s Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post and now a professor at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
The massive study goes into great detail in discussing the administration’s battle against leakers such as Edward Snowden; its “Insider Threat Program” that asks government employees to monitor their colleagues’ behavior; and general lack of transparency, despite repeated promises from Mr. Obama that his White House would be the most open in history.
“This is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered,” wrote New York Times Washington correspondent David Sanger, one of the journalists interviewed for the report.
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