The New York Times has weathered the storm of criticism following its coverage of a secret executive branch program to troll through private financial transactions, reports the
Los Angeles
Times. Following publication, the White House called the article "offensive" and "disgraceful"--and a setback to a program to catch terrorists. At the same time, some Republican lawmakers and
right-wing commentators squawked that the newspaper's investigative reporters should be banned from the White House--or worse. But even as the recriminations reached maximum volume, "business between
the Bush administration and the nation's putative newspaper of record remained on a remarkably even keel," the
LA Times notes. It is all just another shoving match between politicians and the
press, says Ron Hutcheson, a White House correspondent for the McClatchy Co.'s newspapers and former president of the White House Correspondents' Association: "It doesn't signal any huge break in the
symbiotic relationship between the White House and the press."
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