WH vs NBC. NBC: "Its A Free Society"

The Hill, and others are reporting on the latest attempts by the White House control the press.

The White House on Monday sent a scathing letter to NBC News, accusing the news network of "deceptively" editing an interview with President Bush on the issue of appeasement and Iran.

The WH further goes on to hit NBC on Iraq:

"I noticed that around September of 2007, your network quietly stopped referring to conditions in Iraq as a ‘civil war,’ " Gillespie wrote. "Is it still NBC News’s carefully deliberated opinion that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war? If not, will the network publicly declare that the civil war has ended, or that it was wrong to declare it in the first place?"

A DKOS favorite even gets swiped at:

"I’m sure you don’t want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the ‘news’ as reported on NBC and the ‘opinion’ as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines," Gillespie concluded. "I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network’s viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don’t hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division."

Yes, after years of FOX, they go with the 'opinion' and 'news' argument.

NBC has now fired back:

"Just as the White House does not participate in the editorial process at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or USA Today, NBC News, as part of a free press in a free society, makes its own editorial decisions," NBC said in a statement.

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The most recently linked article also observes the length the WH has gone to make the battle public:

The White House didn't just send its letter of complaint to NBC. It blasted it out to every reporter who receives White House press releases and posted it prominently on the White House Web site.