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Journalists Route Around White House Press Office
Tailhook writes Pool reports written by White House correspondents are distributed to news organizations via the White House Press Office. Reporters have alleged that the Obama White House exploits its role as distributor to "demand changes in pool reports" and has used this power to "steer coverage in a more favorable direction." Now a group of 90 print journalists has begun privately distributing their work through Google Groups, independent of the Press Office. Their intent is to "create an independent pool-reporting system for print and online recipients."
These people need to start showing the President some respect.
If I were president, $#% like that wouldn't happen... I'd leave it all completely open - the thought of filtering news and coercing journalists is repulsive to me... But then that's one of the million reasons I'm not president and have never felt like there was a good candidate to vote for.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The Internet perceives censorship as damage and routes around it. The tighter the control the more systems will slip through their fingers.
Ooh how many more memes can this article produce?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
insults the intelligence of forum readers by repeating the old quote that inspired TFH.
Heh. Yeah, right! It'll be modded up too.
Forgot the "Chicago way". This administration is doing things the "Soviet way".
This administration will go down as one of the most corrupt and manipulative in history.
Hah!
What did they imagine the White House Press Office was for? It's always been the tool that the White House uses to get whatever information it wants the press to report on out to reporters. It's not a service to the press to tell them everything THEY want to know about the government. Never has been. If they're not getting out the information that THEY want to report on, whose job is that?
Seriously? Journalists should muster the stuff to set up something for themselves. As we know, there's so > much room between Google and the NSA -- as far as I'm concerned, Google *is* the NSA, for all practical purposes.
C'mon, journalists! You can do better!
Summary: The White House puts their spin on news, like every other administration has.
he promised the most open & transparent administration ever!
these reporters are obviously racists!
(& yes, W is a chimp & Romney would have looted the country for BAIN - doesn't excuse O's behavior!)
After reading TFA, this is much to do about nothing. One piece of "news" requested by the White House to be removed included paring down an article of the President's visit on the "Tonight Show" based on an agreement with the show not to release too much about the content of the show before broadcast - a common show biz rule. Another was a line about the First Lady working out in a hotel gym, while another was a piece about the President honoring a retiring long-time White House journalist with a cake and a humorous quip. The only thing of possible substance here is the 4th mentioned report where a reporter had sour grapes about being left out of a photo op, and wrote a piece comparing his treatment to a freedom of the press speech the President had given days earlier.
In fact, they quoted other reporters saying they've never had a problem, and have never been corrected besides "spelling and factual errors".
What a sham post. Editors should be ashamed of themselves for trying to start a boiling political argument over nothing. Smells thickly of corporate motives, which is blatantly unacceptable.
THE most transparent administration in history of the freest, most democratic, stongest, greatest and #1 country in the world with a president who was rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize by Europe!
*puts his hand on his heart and begins singing*
"AMERICA, AMERICA, GOD SHED HIS GRACE ON THEEEeeee"
Seems like false advertizing!
The Net perceives censorship as damage, and routes around it. --John Gilmore
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Is that like a spooler? Who's managing the queue?
Before everyone gets all uptight... actually check this story out. It's a bunch of hype.
Full Disclosure: I don't like Obama, didn't vote for him, etc... Though I'm not a republican either.
Reporters have alleged that the Obama White House exploits its role as distributor to "demand changes in pool reports" and has used this power to "steer coverage in a more favorable direction."
Of course they did. Wouldn't you if you were president?
On top of that, this is only for print journalists. All of the other Journalists (Cable/TV/Internet) already have external distribution systems to send this stuff out. This isn't an example of Whitehouse overreach. It's yet another example of Print Journalism being 30 years out of date.
Next they'll accuse the whitehouse of withholding their typewriter ribbon supplies to delay stories.
Of course there are going to be dozens of free speech comments, and how this is censorship and a terrible thing. But the reality is that the president gives these reporters unprecedented access to his daily life that he need not give them at all. From TFA:
Carney told the pool reporter, David Nakamura of The Washington Post, that the workout was part of the first ladyâ(TM)s personal time and therefore off limits to reporters. Nakamura disagreed but reluctantly deleted the line to ensure that his report would be sent.
If I were president, Mr. Nakamura would have no fricking clue when and where my wife was working out, and if people did not like that, they could kiss my ass.
Just to be clear, it's not as if all the reporters on the White House beat run all their work through the White House press office. This story is talking about material produced by the "pool." These are low-impact, run of the mill stories (President met with Cub Scouts, talked about importance of youth exercise, etc.) where it would be silly to have every news outlet cover them with their own reporter. So, the journalists on the White House beat rotate through the pool, one person (maybe this week it's the reporter from the Chicago Tribune) writes the story about the Cub Scout meeting, and it gets distributed to all the outlets. Essentially, it's a mini version of the Associated Press.
Well, apparently under this President it's gotten to the point where they've have to have a formal work-around. Perhaps partisans will jump in and say that under Bush a report was delayed for an hour because of an emergency, or some other lame precedent that will allow them to claim that "everybody does it," when no, everybody doesn't do it.
Sadly, I thought the Pres. was going to do this 5 years ago.
Pretty much that.
When Shrub's team were in, they'd have been shipped to Gitmo or shitcanned by the newspaper owner before the ink dried.
Hell, Cheyney would've blamed a "hunting accident" and just excised them himself...
Flavor of the day Obama hate crap. I agree with the poster that said the article was hype.
Someone in the media is trying (in vein) to affect the outcome of the midterm election.
I hate to break it to all the right wingers out there, despite what the news droids are saying,
The senate is going to stay in democratic control and it should be no surprise at all that most of the right wing and tea partiers in congress are going to be basically "Tarred and feathered" and the Congress is going to be back in Democratic control, and rightly so, because what this congress has done has basically put the country at severe risk on numerous occasions since they have been there.
You do realize what a "pool report" is don't you? They are basically "free to use" press notes for all or a group of reporters, they are created either due to limited space in a venue, to keep costs down by not needing so many reporters in the same place at the same time and in some cases due to the size of a venue. They are used by print journalists but some also end up in other media. I suppose they're not of dire importance but the fact that the White House is giving themselves some kind of editorial power over the reports is definitely concerning. If they're willing to stop a pool report simply because it includes the fact that an intern fainted then they would probably have no qualms about stopping more important reports.
Yo, bro, pass that blunt over here!
Nah, they just hate women.
Holy shit, a free and independent Press? Whocouldaknowd?
The problem is access. No single news agency can meaningfully take on the government because then most of its government sources dry up and it doesn't get on the campaign bus. It also loses support in Congress or from its investors who have a financial interest in having a positive relationship with the Government,
This article is posted under the "Style" section of the WaPo. A really slow news day or what?
I'm also curious who this "group of 90 print journalists" actually works for. IMHO, in today's political climate after Citizens' United, every journalist is for hire.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
The Obama White House. The White House of the most perfectest, the most bestest of the best. The mostest intelligentest of the intelligent, the greatest of human being, an almost god, Jupiter-like in his powers....
They must be Faux News Repug Racists!!!!