This Arianna Huffington post dressing down Michael Calderone, Ben Smith, and Dana Milbank for spewing nonsense about Nico Pitney’s question was quite satisfying. I kind of expect this kind of thing from Milbank, but I’m really not sure why Calderone and Smith are worked up- no one would freak out if Obama called on the Politico.
I honestly have no idea what the big deal is- the WH had no idea what question he would ask, just that they might ask him to ask a question. The idea that we are in Gannon/Armstrong Williams/Maggie Gallagher territory here is pretty absurd, and I’m just not that sure what they are all worked up about.
kommrade reproductive vigor
The idea of an upstart from one of those horrible little blog thingies being treated like a real reporter has them in a tizzy.
Donna
“Michael, Dana, and Ben: come in from recess. You guys clearly need a nap. And a better fact-checker.”
favorite line.
passerby
Arianna:
Michael, Dana, and Ben: come in from recess. You guys clearly need a nap. And a better fact-checker.
Go girl.
(Edit: Donna beat me to it)
Will
THEY worked hard to get in the White House press room. Having the dirty bloggers there cheapens it.
Of course, a better question might be to ask why the most qualified journalists are put in a job that’s basically sitting in a press conference and then calling people. If journalism was what it said it was, that’d be a mid-level beat and the senior reporters would be out of the office investigating and reporting stories 60 Minutes style.
A Mom Anon
It’s a club and someone not in the club had the nerve to tread on their territory. I don’t think it’s more complex than that.
DC seems to be like a snooty high school only with more money and power. What sucks is that most of the politicians and the media think of this as nothing more than a game. For the rest of us,alot of what happens in DC ends up directly screwing us over in some form or fashion. I’d really like to take most of the bastards and drop them off in the poorest areas of the country sans cell phone and wallet and see how long they last.
Elroy's Lunch
I’m thinking it might be losing their jobs to the dirty bloggers. Or worse, losing their adoring fan base. Which seems to be other journalists
kay
I just think the listed pundits are boring. Ben Smith is boring. He uses the same device over and over again, every day.
He lays out whatever a Democrat or liberal did, and then he compares it to something a Republican or conservative did. The comparison doesn’t have to be accurate, or interesting, or even relevant.
It’s a template, this device, and it illuminates nothing. It adds nothing. It’s like he’s setting the terms of the partisan battle. I’m not sure what the point is. I don’t read the posts anymore. I might as well read the comments section on Politico. There’s no difference.
The Saff
Well, it was pretty clear (at least to me) that the WH press corps is in its own little Washington bubble. I doubt they have any idea what’s going on out in the hinterlands (read: everywhere but inside the Beltway); they were asking questions that they thought would impress each other.
And for cluelessness, check out Maureen Dowd’s column today. I’m still not sure how she connects Italy’s prime minister’s proclivities with Obama’s smoking.
Aaron
Also, I think they are missing the fact that Pitney’s questions, while it may have been from an Iranian, was the best question asked yesterday. Better than all of the other BS questions the “professionals” lobbed out there with a smirk.
Napoleon
The press are such a bunch of sniveling, preening, self-centered, know-nothing, establishment worshiping ass-kissers it is hard to know where to start with them. I swear if I ever run into any of them I will give it to them with both barrels (and I mean figuratively and verbally). All three of those guys come across as a cry baby teen.
Obama ought to direct his first 3 questions next time at a non-traditional outlet and ignore those 3 just to send them into a tizzy.
BTW, the Huff Post question was one of the best (and hardest on the Pres) of the day, just like the first question they were allowed to ask which, if I recall correctly, also sent a bunch of the knobs from the MSM into pearl clutching mode.
Shalimar
Does someone want to look back and find out if any of the people getting worked up over this even cared about Gannon/Williams/Gallagher? I bet somewhere in there you’ll find a story arguing that Gannon or Williams or Gallagher isn’t a big deal and shouldn’t be generating media attention.
patrick
Didn’t Milbank used to be one of the good guys not that long ago?
I wonder what caused him to take a “good guy wrestler who suddenly grabs a chair and smacks his tag team partner to the ground” kind of dive?
The Saff
Hooman Majd (who was on Bill Maher last week) was on Countdown last night and said the question wasn’t very good but that Obama’s response to it was.
Napoleon
@The Saff:
I didn’t say it was good, I said it was one of the best. You have to judge that question in light of the drivel coming from the others like does Obama sneak smokes and watch video clips on YouTube.
You know, in the land of the blind the one-eye man is king.
Bill E Pilgrim
Not only are they protecting their turf, they’re protecting the crappy job they’ve done over the past number of years, it must be mortifying to see someone suddenly asking questions that actually have to do with something important.
If they had their way we’d get nothing but smoking questions and Fox News talking points du jour dressed up as “Some say..” questions.
Dear White House Press Corps: Some say you’re all had your brains and moral compasses surgically removed by parasites from the brain slug planet. Do you have a response to this serious charge?
Xenos
@kay:
Agreed. It is the same Procrustean bed that the rest of the the beltway insiders use to turn whatever is happening into ‘news’: recast the event into the most parochial, binary political terms, and voila – make it ‘newsworthy’. Bloggers like Ben think they are being edgy by being more direct and open about this process (‘cool’=openly cynical), but they are no less boring than the cable shows.
Bill E Pilgrim
BTW yes, I’d love to see the part where Gannon was praised by the Economist for his journalism. Now there was an actual plant. And I do mean vegetable in addition to the other sense.
someguy
As soon as the media, even the non-villager media, drops its nearly implacable hostility to Obama for even a moment, the wingers are all over it. Must be pretty lame to live your life waiting for moments like that.
The Saff
@Napoleon:
I was just saying that’s what Majd said. And I agree with you.
Avocet
Actually, it was a pretty good question. I watched the p/c and it appeared to me that the Prez preferred that a different question had been asked. But he went ahead, and the answer to the question laid out the policy difference between our reacting to election fraud and our reacting to suppression of speech and assembly. It probably helped our cause in the Middle East that he clearly and publicly explained this difference.
The Grand Panjandrum
Wow the Villagers whining like a bunch of WATB’s when a DFH blogger gets to ask a question.
Nico’s mistake was not genuflecting as he passed by his betters. Naughty Nico!
Cat Lady
I just can’t watch TV news anymore or read newspapers anymore. Getting rid of Froomkin makes me want to hurt Fred Hiatt, and now the WaPo can’t die fast enough for me. The WaPo and the NYT are directly responsible for the ditch we’re in, and they refuse to accept any responsibility. The press corps sucks and rejects any criticism as they assure their own extinction. Howard Kurtz “media critic” is an apologist, as is the WaPo ombudsman. Clark Hoyt gets it right at the NYT, but Keller is a fool and a hack, so it’s for naught. Time to start over from scratch.
passerby
@patrick:
My guess is it’s probably the same thing that caused Chuck Todd to go from competent, articulate and likable statistics reporter to just another highly paid political hack with access to the upper circles of power.
They get their marching orders from some show producer and then obediently go out and produce show.
JenJen
Nobody could have predicted that reporters who have been riffing from Pitney’s extraordinary work for days now would be profoundly jealous when that work is essentially recognized vis-a-vis a toss from the President of the United States.
We talked about this a bit yesterday here too, and I continue to be surprised at the bare level of the envy pointed at Pitney. For example, Ana Marie Cox tweeted yesterday that if POTUS already knows who he is going to call on, why do the rest of the reporters even have to go to the presser? Honestly, are these people even remotely interested in doing their jobs well?
And enough with the cutesy stuff, too, from Smith, Milbank, et al. Reporters usually get a heads-up from the WH that they are on the questions list. Chuck Todd and Jake Tapper, for instance, also know that because they represent major news outlets, they’re always likely to get a question. So why the game-playing; why pretend “it’s soooo unfair!” when what it really is is standard operating procedure?
DougJ
Milbank’s was a lot worse than the others, IHMO. Though Ben overreacted pretty badly.
Evinfuilt
@patrick:
Milbank is a PUMA, at least he acts like one ever since Obama started winning primaries against his queen.
Aaron
Well, perhaps another way to frame this issue is if you treat “access” as the currency of journalism. The WH beat reporters have functionally “easy” reporting jobs, as they basically know when and where newsworthy events are going to happen (newsworthy, in this case, referring to events which can cheaply fill airtime or columnspace for a news outlet)
This sort of access must be carefully guarded, as white house reporters have achieved some level of notoriety in their profession. If a DFH blogger (who, btw, has done an outstanding job of covering the Iranian situation) can swoop into their country-club environment, it undermines not only their carefully guarded access, but also the notion that they are somehow the “chosen” to sit in that press room.
When bloggers (who in this case have done better work) can get into the room and ask (in this case better) questions, it eventually leads to the question: “Why do we need you establishment hacks when people like Pitney are doing a better job and ask better questions?”
IndieTarheel
@kay:
Reminds me of the Brady Bunch movie where Mike gets commissioned to design properties for several different uses and they all wind up being the same design.
IndieTarheel
Also. There’s no pouting/crying in
journalismself-promotionGOP talking point regurgitation.Unless, of course, you’re Glenn Beck.
Aaron
@patrick
Fred Hiatt promised him a push?
demimondian
I think that you’re dancing around the issue here. To have a chair in the WH press gaggle is to have status — and *every* profession has status. By calling on Pitney — and, more, by calling *out* Pitney — the President directly upset that status. That’s no small deal to people who worked hard to get that status in the first place.
They’re bitter about it — and, _contra_ Arianna, they have every right to be. The Pres has played Calvinball with them, and they don’t like it.
Chris Andersen
The fact that these yahoos think that Nico Pitney is at all equivalent to Jeff Gannon just shows that they never understood what was the problem with Jeff Gannon.
Chris Andersen
@Will:
The White House beat is for the elite because you (1) get to ask the President questions directly and (2) you get a lot more face time on the TV. The latter is, of course, the most important reason why all the Washington journalists want that beat.
Everything else requires them to actually work.
Chris Andersen
@A Mom Anon:
Amen. Obama’s comment about 24 hour news cycles hit directly on this point.
slippytoad
@ A Mom Anon
I see a new reality tv show in the works here.
@ demimondian
They have no right to be bitter about it. The WH press corps sucks rancid ass at their jobs and every one of them should be, as noted above, dropped off in the poorest areas of the country without their support system. Let’s see if they actually merit survival in the jungle of America. I don’t think they have what it fucking takes.
Nazgul35
Newsflash: Media concerned that Obama calls on reporter because Obama knows reporter may ask a question…
Film at eleven…
asiangrrlMN
@demimondian: If they don’t like it, they could, you know, actually ask decent questions or something. I have no sympathy for these guys (and gals). Most of the other questions made me cringe.
@Nazgul35:
Yes. This.
chrome agnomen
re dropping them off in the poorest areas of the country.
hell, i’m poor as can be, and i probably couldn’t take it if i had no wallet, no money. that’s a little draconian, though i often wish it on them. more apt would be for them to get thrust into a minimum wage or slightly more highly paid job, and ket them go from there. in other words, nothing more or less than millions of people. oh yeah, one more key thing—no health insurance. live like i do. i can think of no other single thing that will more rapidly instill empathy for one’s fellow man, and carve mountains of bullshit out of your daily rants about the unwashed.
DavidTC
The crowning moment of funny here is this line:
Back at Politico, Ben Smith declared the calling on Nico “a nice case of symbiosis, not entirely unlike the Bush administration’s close ties to Fox,”
Let us assume that this is 100% accurate. It is not, but let’s pretend. So let me get this straight. During Bush’s entire administration, he had a shill in the news room, named ‘Fox News’, that he called on probably hundreds of times. No comments from Ben Smith, not a peep.
And, in fact, no peep about the fact that a major new network was in a symbiotic relationship with a political party and failed to admit that?
Then the Democrats, once elected, insert a shill for a single press conference and ask one question and you feel this is important enough to be outraged over? A blog, for pete’s sake.
Hell, we actually had this scandal of ‘a blogging shill working for the administration’, called Jeff Ganon. Remember that?
Surely Obama is allowed one fake question(1) that he wrote to have himself asked, or whatever the theory is here, cause Bush got dozens from Ganon.
And, like I said, hundreds from FNC. But it takes a Democrat imaginarily doing that once to get Ben Smith to object.
Ben Smith: If his premises are correct, he’s a total right-wing jerkoff for complaining about Obama doing something once that he himself just asserted that Bush did literally hundreds of times, and yet he did not complain about.
Of course, his premises are not correct anyway.
1) You know, considering how carefully we need to stage manage our response to events in Iran, I actually would not mind if the president did word a question he was asked. Normally, I’d find that objectionable, but we’re not talking about policy, we’re talking about how we ‘feel’ about Iran, and the president has to be very very careful how things are worded.So even if what Smith was asserting was true, it would be acceptable in this instance, because discussions about Iran are not discussions about policy, they are fine-line diplomacy that is for the ears of Iran.
I know the Republicans don’t understand this, but people of average intelligence do….we’re not saying what we actually think, we’re saying what will produce the outcome we desire, which could be exactly the opposite of what we actually think.