Access

Tuesday 19 February 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

There’s nothing like worrying about “access” when it comes at the cost of being able to fulfill your role in society.

[Obama] gets more-favorable-than-not coverage because many staffers are fearful of talking to reporters, even anonymously, and some reporters inevitably worry access or the chance of a presidential interview will decrease if they get in the face of this White House.

And because Obama is reportedly a cocky bastard who doesn’t see talking to the press as useful, they’ve resorted, as a means to keep their beloved access to The King, to what has been termed the “softball interview.”

The super-safe, softball interview is an Obama specialty. The kid glove interview of Obama and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Steve Kroft of CBS’s “60 Minutes” is simply the latest in a long line of these. Obama gives frequent interviews (an astonishing 674 in his first term, compared with 217 for President George W. Bush, according to statistics compiled by Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist at Towson University), but they are often with network anchors or local TV stations, and rarely with the reporters who cover the White House day to day.

The media should be fucking ashamed of how they’ve reported on this presidency. More concerned with being in the same room with his excellency, they’ve resorted to treating him with kid gloves and acquiesced to journalistic abominations like quote approval and openly reporting White House press releases as researched and verified news. They’ve made a mockery of their profession.

2013-02-19  »  madlibertarianguy