No Compete Claws

by digby

I've been busy this week and so wasn't able to follow the little press corps hissy fit over Nico Pitney as closely as I would have liked. But I was wondering if the people who were so terribly upset that a member of the "low press"* was allowed into the inner sanctum to ask a question at a press conference had been equally upset when a former male escort working for a partisan Republican front group had been called upon repeatedly at white house press conferences.

Eric Boehlert checked and found out that the most vociferous critic of the alleged "manipulation" had never written a word about Jeff Gannon:

But please note that in 2005 when it was revealed that right-wing partisan James Guckert had been waved into the WH press room nearly 200 times without proper credentials, wrote under an alias (Jeff Gannon), and asked Bush officials softball questions, Milbank remained mum. (He wasn't alone.)

According to Nexis, Milbank never wrote about the Gannon story.

As I said, I haven't had the time to follow this little brouhaha in detail, so maybe I've missed something. But from what I understand, the white house knew that Pitney had been soliciting questions from Iranians to ask the president at his press conference. There wasn't anything secret about that. Pitney had built a huge audience on this story gathering all kinds of stories on twitter, youtube and in the foreign press and had developed a bunch of sources. So, being that he was a member of the low press, in order to allow him to ask the question from an Iranian, they had to give him a special pass to mingle with the blow dried fops and spokesmodels of the high press who are allowed to question the president. According to all parties, the question wasn't known in advance. Indeed, Pitney could have asked about energy policy if he'd wanted to. But I would guess that everyone knew that he would likely ask a question from an Iranian because he'd said on his blog that's what he was going to do!

Is the DC press corps really this thick? If the president and favored reporters are cooking up questions in secret then it's a problem. A writer publicly soliciting questions from readers and saying he will use one of them if the president calls on him is not the same thing, particularly when the exact question wasn't known. It seems to me that this is a pretty obvious distinction.

The mainstream press in in a panic right now over their competition from online publications. It's perfectly understandable. In that respect they are a lot like the insurance companies desperately clinging to their failing model because competition from outside of it will likely kill off those who can't adapt. I can understand why they are feeling anxious. But Milbank seems to me to be an odd choice to be making this stink. He's always been a sort of "new media" kind of guy with lots of attitude and an irreverent style. He could survive in the new environment just fine.

Of course, just like those insurance company CEOs, he won't make as much money or have as much security. But hey, that's what's been happening to people all over this country for a few decades now --- competition tends to do that. Ask all those Americans who used to work in factories or for companies that are no longer in business. Nobody's immune from competition, not even political establishment celebrities.

Maybe these people need to reevaluate their blind faith in the market if they don't like this outcome. It's as predictable as the sun coming up in the morning.


*I saw this delicious term "low press" somewhere and would like to give credit, but I can't find it. If anyone knows who coined it, let me know...