Written by Dallas Hyland
President Obama recently visited Utah and met exclusively with leaders of the Mormon Church.
I wonder what they talked about.
Neither you nor I will know due to an increasingly recurring trend in the Obama administration according to the White House Press Corps.
The Obama White House is utilizing digital media and generating its own news content in a startlingly aggressive fashion not seen by any president before. It seeks to control the message and actively engages in damage control on issues it does not wish to speak of and has in essence, created its very own news outlet.
This is not to say that it is singularly indigenous to this administration to try to control the message. The Obama Whitehouse is simply doing it more effectively than any previous administration has.
It is as though an environment of shaping the dialogue with the American people has become an art as well as a strategy. And the fourth estate, tasked with the chore of holding the president and other officials in the administration accountable, are being told they can only ask the questions the administration wants to answer.
This problem transcends the White House, however, as even the streets of our nations capitol run wild with this rampant problem and it trickles down across state, county, and city lines.
Here at home in southern Utah, a similar controlling of public messages from those otherwise accountable to not only the law, but the guaranteed right under the First Amendment to inform the public, is taking place in very real time.
A few months back the City of Washington opened up a work meeting for public comment about the presentation of an ecoseum (Eco-museum) proposal for the Warm Springs.
Embattled with contradictory statements made by the mayor, public works director, and city manager, and a seeming complicit reporter, emerged. Having already been duped by city officials, this reporter was admonished by city officials as someone they “liked,” to have report on their meetings. Under federal governing agencies attempting to bring their behavior in to accountability, city officials maintained that they were compliant with federal laws.
But when questioned about specifics of that law and whether or not they were in fact not compliant, but were rather engaging in political doublespeak, they effectively dismissed The Independent for asking the hard questions. Which by the way is a willful and egregious violation of the First Amendment under the law.
And hard not to mention, as it finds itself subject to two federal lawsuits with the very real possibility of at least two more in the pipe, Dixie State University seeks to shape the conversation through selective quips to members of the press who seem content not to “press” the issue.
It is not unreasonable to say that this is nothing new under the sun with regards to political wrangling and those who would seek to shape the light form which they are seen.
But it is dangerous to the public in ways that cannot be understated.
If the accountability of those who enact measures of policy, justice, and law in the public sector, be it city councils, public universities, or the office of the president itself, can be manipulated in a fashion that quells the the truth, then individual and collective liberty cannot be maintained.
The founders of this land were wise to have the very first amendment to the founding documents be that of free speech and a free press. That is because they realized it would be the thing that kept all of what they set out to do in forming this country, from being returned to the despotism from whence they just fought to be free.
Think about it.
See you out there.
Dallas Hyland is a freelance writer, award-winning photographer, and documentary filmmaker with three films currently under his belt. The opinion editor of The Independent, Hyland’s investigative journalism and opinion columns have ranged in topics from local political and environmental issues, to drug trafficking in Utah, as well as the international front, covering issues such as human trafficking in Colombia. On his rare off-days, he can be found with his family and friends exploring the pristine outdoors. Listen to him live as a regular guest co-host on the Perspectives talk show on Fox News 1450 AM 93.1 FM in southern Utah.
