Press Getting More Adversarial With Obama

Some expect Obama's news conference to take on a more negative tone

By Kenneth T. Walsh

July 22, 2009 RSS Feed Print

Print reporters in the White House press corps are seething at perceived slights against them by President Obama and his team. Many print journalists see their role being diminished as Obama and his aides seem to lavish attention on television anchors and reporters and on liberal bloggers, and this is raising the adversarial tone at the daily briefings of Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Monday, Gibbs was asked pointedly if Obama would call on the same news organizations that he has chosen in his past news conferences—about a dozen—and members of the press corps took this as a sign that the print reporters aren't going to let the preferential-treatment issue die. Obama, in four full-scale news conferences so far in his presidency (three in prime time), makes a habit of picking—in advance—representatives of the Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News.

He usually adds a liberal voice, such as a blogger, and a member of a minority-oriented news organization. And since his opening statement tends to be a minispeech and his answers usually run long, this leaves little time to call on other reporters in the hourlong format. Reporters at Gibbs's briefing Monday also raised objections to Obama's practice of preselecting those he calls on and operating from a list. Many reporters consider this too manipulative and too rigidly orchestrated. But Gibbs declined to agree to make any changes. Gibbs's briefings and Obama's news conferences have taken on a more adversarial tone in recent weeks as Obama's agenda has run into trouble on Capitol Hill and as his approval ratings have declined. This is expected to continue tonight at Obama's scheduled 8 p.m. news conference. For their part, White House aides say the president mostly wants to make his case, again, for fast action on overhauling the healthcare system.

Tags:
Barack Obama,
media

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I read these comments with a smile and sympathy for the president of the US. I would bet that most of those hammering him did not want him to be president, in the first place. So Indeed they are now having their field day. He will do nothing right, as far as they are concerned.

I do believe that the criticism comes from many who have good insurance coverage and feel they are being told how to take care of themselves. But why not think of those who are on the margins; those who are struggling. Obama is trying to make sure each American is covered in case of poor health. Is this a crime? Does that make him a monster? I think that there is just too much noise coming from people who are just plainly biased and selfish. But, I suppose that is just human.

In the final analysis, time will tell if Obama has the right vision, in trying to protect each American, healthwise.

Being a president is not an easy task especially when one is surrounded by many selfish people. Some of you should try it sometime!!!

Orion12 4:13PM July 30, 2009

The American people do not need a bigger government.We need to take back our Country from people like this Administration.I do not want the government making my healthcare decissions!! I do not want my tax money to pay for abortions under the guise of womens health care.What a JOKE.The American people are not stupid Mr President. We do at times make stupid decissions like voting for the present politicains.This feel like a phrase we use to use back in the Cold War days-Big Brother is Watching".We have a Constitution that sets the law of this land.We would be so much better off if we stoped politicians from trying to shove laws down our throat that are directly against our Constitutional Rights.Mr President-I do not want to pay for abortions,I don't want you in my health care,I don't want your bailout for myself and I sure don't want to fund someone else's bailout! This country was founded on the ideals that it is run by the PEOPLE not the Government! The people need to start taking a stand against what is going on in Washington. The Constitution and the 10 comandments are all we need in this country-It's high time we got back to that and let Mr Obama get back to what ever country he came from and take the rest of the politicians with him when he goes.None of them are American or seem to know what America is all about.

Mary Touchette of MI 5:21PM July 29, 2009

We have a president who campaigned on transparency in government. Despite this commitment (part of "change we could believe in"), we are not seeing such transparency in his presidency to date. He promised that we would have visibility to all bills for a 48 hour period on the internet prior to a vote by Congress. Rather we have had no visibility to the content of many bills, and representatives in Congress who themselves frequently failed to familiarize themselves with the content of the bills prior to voting. More importantly however, the Mr Obama has consistently refused to provide transparency in his credentials to be President by releasing documents that would clarify the issue of his citizenship, which has been such a contentious issue. Indeed, it is reported that he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers to suppress relevant documents. Very naturally this leads to a suspicion among many citizens that the President has something to hide.

Leaving aside the question of whether the birth certificate he has produced is legitimate or not, his suppression of his educational transcripts appears particularly puzzling. This is a man with an enviable educational background. His absolute refusal to disclose the contents of these documents suggests to me that they contain material which pose a particular problem for the President. The only subject which would seem to meet that standard of difficulty for the President is his citizenship. In particular, it raises the question as to whether his education files show he made applications to his various academic institutions as a foreign citizen or as a dual citizen. Such status might have been required as part of the eligibility for scholarships he applied for. Should disclosure of the documents prove this to be true, it will certainly raise serious doubt as to his true citizenship status.

That the President seems unwilling to provide clear transparent evidence as to his citizenship, or to provide a credible explanation as to why he insists on suppressing the various documents, does a disservice to all citizens who want to see our government live by the rule of law. Without this evidence, it seems unlikely that the citizenship issue will go away.

Geoff Foley of NY 10:29PM July 28, 2009

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