Tuesday, January 6, 2015

The Watergate Story... Kirby Delauter Style

It's late one evening in 1973 in the office of Ben Bradlee executive editor of The Washington Post, when the silence is broken by a ringing phone.

Bradlee: Hello, this Ben Bradlee

Caller: Please hold for the President of the United States

Richard Nixon: Mr. Bradlee, it's come to my attention that two of your reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein, are preparing to publish articles in which you link my office, including myself, my Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and former Attorney General John Mitchell to the break-in at the Watergate Complex. Is that correct?

Bradlee: Yes sir, that's correct. The evidence is pretty overwhelming.

Nixon: Oh it is?

Bradlee: Yes Mr. President, it is.

Nixon: Well it just so happens that Haldeman and Mitchell are here in the office with me and we've decided that we're not going to authorize Woodward and Bernstein or the Washington Post to publish our names... right boys?

Haldeman and Mitchell: That's right! 

Bradlee: I'm sorry to hear that. But don't we have the right to a free press?

Nixon: Your rights end where mine start!

Moments later Bradlee pokes his head into the newsroom...

Bradlee: Woodstein!!!!

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: Yes Mr. Bradlee?

Bradlee: The Watergate story is finished...

Woodward: What happened? 

Berstein: Did we make a mistake?

Bradlee: Nope, but I just got off the phone with Nixon, Haldeman and Mitchell and they won't let us use their names.

Berstein: Gosh darn it!

Woodward: And it seemed like such an important story... but we certainly shouldn't be aloud to to just freely write about elected officials and their actions while in office.

Bradlee: Goodness no... what kind of society would allow such a thing!

Kirby Delauter...

"Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter wrote on social media that he plans to sue The Frederick News-Post if his name or any reference to him appears in print without his permission."

"Billy Shreve, R-at large, told The News-Post in a phone interview he supported Delauter taking legal actions.
“I did not see his post, but I think The News-Post is extremely biased and someone should sue them,” Shreve said.
When asked if news media outlets should obtain permission to publish an elected official's name or reference, Shreve said, “I think media outlets are cowards and they hide behind the label of journalists and that's a bully pulpit to expand their liberal (agenda)."  (Emphasis mine)

I really need to ask Billy Shreve a simple question... whose the coward, a reporter who writes about people in power and takes public credit for all that she writes or an elected representative of the people who threatens to sue a newspaper if it dares mention his name?

Oh, and one more thing... Kirby DelauterKirby Delauter, Kirby DelauterKirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter.