THE PRESS has always assailed politicians, and politicians have retaliated in various ways. Some feed scoops to the competition. Some make jokes or give nonsensical answers in response to a reporter’s question. President Bush holds his press conferences few and far between and has been known to abruptly end them if he becomes annoyed. In 1962, JFK’s administration asked the New York Times to reassign reporter David Halberstam after his critical coverage of the Vietnam war. Few, though, have retaliated the way Maryland’s Republican governor Robert Ehrlich has.
On November 18, the Ehrlich administration sent a memo to all Maryland state officials in the executive branch banning them from talking to two Baltimore Sun journalists, columnist Michael Olesker and statehouse bureau chief David Nitkin, who Ehrlich claims have been “failing to objectively report” on state issues.
