THE REVOLVING DOOR - AT 7:41 A.M. ET:  Washington has many revolving doors.  Through these doors pass people who have worked for the government, then wind up working for industries they presumably should have been watching or regulating as government employees.  Through other doors march people who've worked for companies, unions, interest groups and the like, who wind up working for government for a few years, then go back to their original base, conflict-of-interest and all.

There's a new revolving door - journalists who worked for the MSM, and are now joining the Obama administration.  Brent Baker of Newsbusters reports this morning:

Roberta Baskin, a veteran of CBS News, ABC News, PBS and Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, with a stint at the Center for Public Integrity mixed in, “will join the Department of Health and Human Service's office of inspector general as a senior communications adviser in mid-August,” Washington Post “Federal Eye” blogger Ed O'Keefe reported late Monday...

...My list of journalists who have jumped to the Obama administration -- plus one who traveled through the revolving door from helping the Obama campaign into a news media slot -- is now up to thirteen. Not counting Baskin: Three each revolved through CNN and the Washington Post; two through ABC News; and one each via the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and Time magazine.

COMMENT:  There have always been some journalists who have joined administrations, most famously the legendary Edward R. Murrow, who became head of the U.S. Information Agency under Jack Kennedy.  But the sheer number of scribes who have joined the Obama crusade is disturbing.  The relationship is too close, and clearly unhealthy for this democracy and for the already rusted image of the media.

August 4, 2009