{"id":4182,"date":"2005-05-12T09:30:09","date_gmt":"2005-05-12T13:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4182.html"},"modified":"2005-05-12T09:30:09","modified_gmt":"2005-05-12T13:30:09","slug":"communication-between-feds-and-press-reaches-really-dangerous-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/communication-between-feds-and-press-reaches-really-dangerous-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"Communication between feds and press reaches really<\/i> dangerous levels"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the outset, let me say unequivocally that there’s nothing funny about a potential terrorist threat. I’m not in Washington anymore, but I can appreciate how scary it is when the White House and the Capitol are evacuated<\/a> because a plane had entered a no-fly zone. It’s hardly the kind of thing one should joke about.<\/p>\n

However, there is something acerbically funny about the fact that government officials and their staffs were quickly ushered away from the Capitol and the White House for their own safety — and no one told the reporters<\/a> who were in both buildings at the time.<\/p>\n

A public address system installed after the Sept. 11 attacks to warn White House reporters about an emergency was not used earlier today when the building was evacuated after a small plane flew into unrestricted air space over Washington, D.C., reporters told E&P.<\/p>\n

“They didn’t activate the emergency P.A. system as they were supposed to,” said Alex Keto, a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires. “A handful of television crew people were eating lunch in the lunch area and were never told about it and did not leave.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Jean Doublet, a White House reporter for Agence France-Presse, confirmed the account. “There was no formal announcement at all, and we just went outside because we saw a commotion,” he told E&P. “There was no announcement in the beginning, and none when I came back in about 20 minutes later.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know the relationship between political officials and the press isn’t great right now, but one likes to believe that if there’s an imminent threat and people are being evacuated, some<\/i> kind of announcement would be made for reporters.
\n
\nAt yesterday’s White House press briefing<\/a>, reporters reminded McClellan — and ultimately even cracked jokes — about the problem of leaving the media behind.<\/p>\n

Q After 9\/11, there was a system put in place for this voice announcement that comes over the speaker — <\/p>\n

MR. McCLELLAN: That’s right. <\/p>\n

Q — if there is a certain level of emergency. <\/p>\n

MR. McCLELLAN: My understanding from the initial conversations I had following this situation was that protocols were followed that were in place. And let me look into it to see if there’s more. You might want to direct those questions to the Secret Service, as well. <\/p>\n

Q It did not go off at all. <\/p>\n

MR. McCLELLAN: The Uniformed Division was evacuating people, as well as moving people — <\/p>\n

Q We did not know anything about that. We did not know anything about that — seriously.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later in the briefing, another reporter asked a rhetorical question about the Secret Service’s “pecking order” on who gets saved in the event of an emergency — and where the press falls on the list. One reporter cracked, “We might be below Barney and Ms. Beazley,” in reference to the president’s dogs.<\/p>\n

The transcript reflects laughter after the comment, but I have a hunch not everyone thought it was funny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the outset, let me say unequivocally that there’s nothing funny about a potential terrorist threat. I’m not in Washington anymore, but I can appreciate how scary it is when the White House and the Capitol are evacuated because a plane had entered a no-fly zone. It’s hardly the kind of thing one should joke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}