Broadcast Media Tales of Heat in News Kitchen

Interesting to see the big broadcasters feeling the pressure.

Broadcast Journalists Fire Back

By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable, 3/11/2005 10:10:00 AM

The White House, the courts and the Federal Communications Commission all took hits from broadcast journalists Thursday night, who said they were feeling under fire from a manipulative and even malicious government.

NBC News President Neal Shapiro set the tone, telling a roomful of top journalists gathered for the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation awards dinner in D.C. that the press is under attack as never before from the executive and judicial branches, which he says are pursuing journalists with "actual malice" just for doing their jobs.

It's time to "sound the alarm," he said. That call was picked up by other speakers and punctuated with applause from the crowd.....

ABC's Sam Donaldson, master of ceremonies, said he had never seen such "vitriolic animus" toward journalists, save for the waning days of the Nixon administration...

Veteran CBS newsman Ed Bradley... talked of the pressure by government and corporations to "control the message," saying journalists must fight those efforts. "There is a price to pay," he said, for representing the people.