This week saw the second hearing for David Aptaker for justice of the family and probate court.
What wasn't covered by the media was majority of the subsequent questions asked him by the...
More Obama media hype?
posted by Jon Keller on June 24, 2009
This appropriately skeptical report by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post on the presidential manipulation of yesterday's White House "news conference" raises a question -- how much longer will this be allowed to go on before the DC press corps quits rolling over and barks back en masse?
Milbank describes how White House staffers arranged for a "reporter" from the pro-Obama Huffington Post website to pop a softball question, and notes:
"During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask preplanned questions. But here was Obama fielding a preplanned question asked by a planted questioner -- from the Huffington Post."
Ugh. Tonight's (potential) bag job is an "ABC News Event: Prescription for America" live from the White House, where the president will field questions about health-care reform. I'm sure those question won't be planted, the way the Bushies used to plant them at his phony "town meetings." After all, we now have change in charge.
Comments
Sour grapes by Milbank, as a member of the long-entrenched, disconnected Beltway press corps, bristling at President Obama's penchant for selecting bloggers and other less prominent, nontraditional media members at press conferences. Has the "watchdog" Washington press forgotten how they behaved at President Bush's BBQs, cooing with delight when President Bush gave them nicknames. Whatever street cred the Huffington Post questioner has as a journalist exceeds the GOP plant who President Bush always counted on for softball questions--until the flack was found to have posted a photo of himself on a gay porn site. The White House press corps has an inflated opinion of itself, especially about its Watergate coverage when most of the rank-and-file was content to receive Ron Ziegler's pablum while "Woodstein", Sy Hersh and a few others did the real work. I think we should wait until the ABC health care special airs before condemning it as another Brian Williams-type lovefest. For that matter, Fox News has led the whining about ABC's access as if it never benefitted from White House "sleepovers" with Karl Rove and Dick Cheney during the Bush Administration. President Obama's handlers masterfully controlled the press during the campaign. If the news media is tired of being played, there is plenty of serious reporting to be done that doesn't involve Sarah Jessica Parker's twins or Gov. Palin & David Letterman.
"Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of the -- of what the demonstrators there are working towards?"
You think this is a softball question?
Would either of you care to address the notion that questions taken at relatively-rare presidential press conferences ought not involve stage management by the White House, and that if it was wrong for Bush to do it, it's also wrong for Obama?
Sure, Jon, I don't like the whiff of stage management. It's nowhere near the news orchestration of the Bush years, but it's a step in that direction. Even though the question wasn't negotiated by the White House and Obama didn't know what it was going to be, I don't like it.
Now how about answering mine - why did you label it a "softball"? To me it's anything but.
Ideally, presidential press conferences should be a common occurrence; an opportunity for the President to be held accountable to voters. Clinton and Bush rarely held them and Obama is being criticized for holding too many of them. It's not a case of it being "wrong" for the Obama Admin. to try to control the news media. The Obama folks are better at it than many of their predecessors and the press is a less formidable foe than it used to be (I still get the shakes thinking about the Wash. Post asking Obama about A-Rod's steroid confession while the economy teetered on the brink of collapse). The press should not be such a willing participant in these tv events, but instead, should focus on "shoe leather" reporting and detailed explanations to the public about complex issues such as health care reform.
I don't want to derail the proceedings here, but we've been having a good discussion of this over at Media Nation as well:
http://tr.im/pE5I
Although not everyone agrees with me, I think Milbank clearly left the impression that Obama knew what question Pitney was going to ask him. Pitney says that's not true.
Pitney has also done an admirable job of keeping up on the online conversation taking place among Iranians, which is why he was an ideal person to ask the question.
That said, it looks like the White House went too far in stage-managing this one.
Steve....OK, fair point, I'll retract the term "softball," although it's not a very well-phrased question. How about: "Do you see anything occurring in Iran right now that prompts you to re-think your approach to dealing with the regime there?"
This is off the original topic, but David Corn in Mother Jones notes another rare occurrence from this press conference: David Jackson asks about Obama's support for a public health care plan, Obama weaves around it. Not unusual so far. But Jake Tapper is up next, and instead of asking his question, he presses Obama to actually answer Jackson's.
Corn's report is here:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/06/jake-tapper-mensch
Imagine that! The White House press core is actually starting to awake from its 8-year slumber.
Plumline compares the NY Times's outrage over Obama's "stagecraft" to their worshipful assessment of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" stagecraft.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/ny-times-bashes-obamas...
Emptywheel reminds us how much this controversy is based on a false equivalency between the Bush administration's media manipulation and this "arranged question":
"They Planted a Gay Whore in His News Conferences!!!"
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/06/24/they-planted-a-gay-whore-in...