Press Corps Warns White House Of Increased Adversarial Tone If They Aren't Nicer To Press Corps

Hey, folks, have you checked your local listings? Big press conference tonight! You know what that means, right? Big bitching from the White House Press Corps this afternoon! Nobody should be surprised by this.

Print reporters in the White House press corps are seething at perceived slights against them by President Obama and his team. Many print journalists see their role being diminished as Obama and his aides seem to lavish attention on television anchors and reporters and on liberal bloggers, and this is raising the adversarial tone at the daily briefings of Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Got that, Robert Gibbs? You are going to get an increased adversarial tone from the press corps if you don't watch it! Is it because the White House has been obfuscating (on White House visitors), breaking promises (on Don't Ask Don't Tell), struggling to hold the line on major policy (health care, energy), or dodging key issues (TARP transparency)? No! Because you see, those would all be GOOD reasons to get adversarial with the White House. Instead, the adversity is motivated by the same things that have traditionally motivated the White House Press Corps: status and vanity.

Oh, and this is not a new story, not at all! These same criticisms were levied against the Obama administration way, way back during the campaign! In January 2008, the press corps were bitching, through able-bodied mouthpiece Howard Kurtz, that they weren't doing enough to "court" the reporters. HOW CAN REPORTERS LEARN TO LOVE OBAMA IF HE DOESN'T EVEN TRY TO WIN THE NEWS CYCLE? And who can forget the elegant laments of high-toned ass Dean Reynolds, who literally complained because the campaign was not being nice to him?

Guess what, the press has not managed to change the Obama press operation in all that time. What's changed instead is the Magical Press Room Protocols, the Arcane Mystery that the Press Corps has guarded as their most precious possession. Those are a few of their favorite things, and Obama hasn't shown them sufficient respect!

He usually adds a liberal voice, such as a blogger, and a member of a minority-oriented news organization. And since his opening statement tends to be a minispeech and his answers usually run long, this leaves little time to call on other reporters in the hour-long format. Reporters at Gibbs's briefing Monday also raised objections to Obama's practice of preselecting those he calls on and operating from a list.

OH, WAAAH. It sure sounds like Fallujah or something!

Of course, it seems petty to single out the structured "mini-speech" beginning of the presser as a cause to raise ire. That "mini-speech" is for the president's constituents to hear. And it's been made pretty clear to me that preselecting questions and lists are de rigeur practices for the White House Press Corps. That's why, to date, despite my repeated asking, I have never had a single member of the White House Press Room tell me that they would refuse to participate in the process if they were preselected. So, you know what? I think it's time for the White House Press Corps to maybe be quiet about their feelings for a while.

Seriously. His answers run long? Jeezy creezy. If the White House replaced the opening "mini-speech" with a spirited session of "Hand Jobs For the Front Row," they'd let that presser run all night.

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Comments

[AfricanMan]

The press Corp deserves it at times, asking idiotic and non-sensical questions

[dessertsfirst]

Let me get this straight... it's ok for the press to have an adversarial, condescending attitude, and ask asin.ine questions, and try to spin to their own satisfaction the answers they get back, and try to humiliate the press secy or the President; but they are complaining that it is the White House who has an adversarial additude to the press??? Hmmmm, now how can that possibly be?

[k6007]

You would think the press would know when they've become irrelevant.. Anytime a comic wins 'the most trusted news anchor' title, well...The writing is on the wall.

[vie2012ne]

Obama better be careful. Without the fawning media to protect his administration, the voters might figure out what a collosal mistake they made in November 2008.

[DocRockk]

Yuh, sure....we'll keep waiting for that, but I wouldn't hold my breath if i were you.

[Tundrapat]

Run, everyone, stampede, I say, to your local voting area and try to reelect that GOP leadership what brought you an illegal war, 'legalized' torture, economic shambles, and massive secrecy!

Oh, how we all pine now for the Bush-Cheney years! PINE, we do!

[an observer3]

The media is controlled by corporations. Does anyone actually knows what is going on in the world?

[MrBadger]

It has been said "People get the government they deserve." (Meaning the government they are willing to put up with.) The same is probably true of the news media. If we didn't put up with these clowns (aka watch them or read them) we'd have a "better class of criminal". :-)

[greysells2]

Pressers, it's a cruel world. Suck it up and do some work. No one cares that your feelings are hurt and you, therefore, are going to act pi**ed off in public so that we all know. Yuk.

[greysells2]

Big babies. Grow up. You report the news; not make it by issuing demands.

[audadvnc]

This is, of course, the same press corps that bent over backward and opened their flabby cheeks for GWB and Cheney's press insertion back in 2002, saying they'd publish any press release the Pentagon or the Administration wanted them to print, no questions asked. But I'm glad they're sticking up for their power of privilege now.

[kathy001]

I was just thinking the same thing. Just what did Bush do to get them to bend over backwards for him?

[lthuedk 1]

http://www.light-to-dark.com/unanticipated_2.html

[Tim303]

Mr. Linkins, you are a great coiffeur of media style. Keep it flowing!

[Artos]

One thing that I have noticed when I've watched coverage of the Press meetings is how some of the Reporters from Right wing establishments have asked downright rude and adversarial questions of Obama. Questions that I also noticed that they never had the audacity to ask of Bush or Cheney. Or just didn't see fit to ask because of their own propensity for bias. if you ask me they are the ones being adversarial. Furhtemore this statement, " In January 2008, the press corps were bitching, through able-bodied mouthpiece Howard Kurtz, that they weren't doing enough to "court" the reporters." seems to imply that the press or certain members of the press feel that they have a great deal of power and that in order to mollify them that they need to be "courted" or better put have their butts kissed. Where do they think they are The Greater Republic of Kazahkstan. I'm all for the Press keeping tabs on Government in order to uncover Corruption, but what happens when the Press themselves are corrupt. That is a poser.

[Melissa]

The press are the people who got him into office. Now they have to live with him for the next 3/1/2 years. It serves you right!

[Beard]

No the press,or lack of,are the ones that got us into all this mess. If they had been doing their job,of informing the public in an unbiased fashion these past 8 years, many lives and mucho dollars would have been saved. Instead we have a corporate owned press that serves the purpose of our plutocracy.

[IDIOTA]

What's a reporter? Aren't they extinct?

[Mnemanth]

Dang! Beat me to it!
There's no "news" anymore, only "news entertainment". At this point I'd just as soon see the President on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart as see him having to deal with the "press corp".

[mjtaylor22]

WTF, more adversarial than they have been getting since obama won the nomination, they have had a condescending and adversarial tone, all media,
lies deception always bringing on repugs to counter the presidents programs
not even havign good debates, just non no no
and they never call out the garbage......
that is why he has prime time press conferences, so we can see what he says ourselves, then the media gets on a mucks it all up with their opoor coverage horrible reporting and horrendous investigation skills
oooh i am so scared

[WindySailor]

Adversarial? He's got my support to turn a gatling gun on the whole lot of them.

[boxman15]

So much for the liberal pro-Obama bias Fox and Republicans like to think there is.

There are still a few good reporters out there, but most are either there to tell the president how perfect he is or how he is the worst thing to ever happen to America. Which, I guess, is better than how they were under Bush, when they just told him how the war in Iraq was a good thing and the federal deficit meant nothing.

You know something's wrong when Americans trust Jon Stewart more than actual journalists.