Headline 'O the Day
by digby
As Atrios says:
It's amazing how turning everything to shit can be "useful" if your last name is Bush. I wonder how that happens.
Meanwhile, here's a story about how the White House stonewalls the press. Gosh I wonder why:
THE PRESS CONFERENCE, just the fourth formal, solo question-and-answer exchange Obama had held in the White House in 2014, has come to define the current state of White House reporting, one in which there is a gulf between the press and the head of state it’s charged with covering. The answers are long, leaving time for just a few questions from a press corps with already-limited access to the president. Actual news is almost never made, since the White House has new tools allowing it to release and manage news on its own schedule and terms—its online news report is but one of these.
The press, meanwhile, shows itself to be a willing hostage to the modern demands for a click-worthy story and a tweetable quote. At press conferences, the overwhelming tendency is to ask about the day’s headline or to look for the “gotcha” question, instead of addressing long-term accountability issues. Frequently, one journalist after the next will ask the same question, as they did during the post-election news conference. Reporters ask questions not to get information, but to get a reaction. And even with that strategy, they rarely succeed.
Honestly, I get why the press might be hostile to the administration due to the relentless pursuit of leaks and journalists. But that doesn't seem to be what bothers them. In fact, they don't seem to care about that at all. They want their gossip and their armchair psychology and they want it now. And the administration just won't give it to them.
The article is about the unprecedented lack of access the administration has given to the press and it's quite interesting. But frankly, you cannot blame them when the press is consistently so shallow and puerile. This is what they do. They get very excited over silly things. Like 2 year olds. Obama takes the position of just ignoring their tantrums. And I'd say it works pretty well for him.
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