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Baskin Becomes 13th MSM Journalist to Spin Through Revolving Door for Obama

By Brent Baker

Roberta Baskin, a veteran of CBS News, ABC News, PBS and Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, with a stint at the Center for Public Integrity mixed in, “will join the Department of Health and Human Service's office of inspector general as a senior communications adviser in mid-August,” Washington Post “Federal Eye” blogger Ed O'Keefe reported late Monday. Specifically, O'Keefe related, her job will be “to help drum up media attention for the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team, an HHS-Justice Department task force aimed at combating Medicare and Medicaid fraud.”
My list of journalists who have jumped to the Obama administration -- plus one who traveled through the revolving door from helping the Obama campaign into a news media slot -- is now up to thirteen. Not counting Baskin: Three each revolved through CNN and the Washington Post; two through ABC News; and one each via the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and Time magazine.
For the full list, check the July 29 NewsBusters item: “Revolving Door from Journalism to Team Obama Now Up to a Dozen.”

She won't be lonely at HHS where the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs is ex-CBS News and ABC News Washington correspondent Linda Douglass. O'Keefe observed that she's “the third journalist-turned-public-servant that previously worked at both ABC and CBS. The administration's health care spokeswoman-at-large Linda Douglass and Justice Department spokeswoman Beverley Lumpkin also worked for both networks.”
The Politico's Michael Calderone provided a brief rundown of her career, going back to the early 1990s:
Baskin's previous gigs include executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, senior Washington correspondent for NOW with Bill Moyers, senior investigative producer for the ABC News magazine 20/20, chief investigative correspondent for 48 Hours, ABC7 investigative reporter and contributor for the CBS Evening News.
After a couple of years running the Center for Public Integrity starting in 2005, she returned to WJLA-TV channel 7 in Washington, DC for a brief tenure. The screen shot is from a report she provided to Good Morning America, in May of 2008, when she was with WJLA-TV.
—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center