Boy, President Obama has the thinnest skin of anybody in politics today:
The White House Press Office has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama's Boston fund-raiser today, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper's front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news “fairly.”
“I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” White House spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote in response to a Herald request for full access to the presidential visit.
Newspapers are always telling politicians how to behave, so naturally we take it well when they criticize our behavior. I don't know that the White House is qualified to decide who is being "fair" in their coverage; like anyone else, politicians will think anything they don't like is "unfair." I have to say, though, that putting an op-ed on the front page is a tad unconventional.
I don't think I've ever gotten us banned from anywhere, but I've gotten plenty of calls from officials not thrilled with an editorial. When I was a reporter, I always made it a point to read the editorials so I'd know which ones were going to cause me grief at city hall. Now, I get to cause the grief.
A lot of veteran Washington correspondents, meanwhile, are criticizing today's White House press corp as a buch of wimps acting as if they're mere stenographers for a monarch:
Former Today Show newsman John Palmer went to so far as to suggest that a weakened press, a 24-hour news cycle, coupled with presidents who don't like live press conferences, have killed the impact of the events. "I think we are witnessing the demise of the televised news conference. I think its time is past," he says.
I suspect he's right. Too bad.
