Panic In D.C.! Bloggers Officially Invited To Cover The President

by Glynnis MacNicol | 9:25 am, December 4th, 2009

» 6 comments

press-pool Last February HuffPo’s Sam Stein made news when he became the first ‘blogger’ (though really he’s a reporter who writes for a website) to be called on by the President of the United States during a press conference. Many people who follow these things saw it as a bit of a watershed moment wherein the Internet was officially deemed a respectable, trustworthy news source.

Cut to nine months later and it looks like the inmates may be ready to take over the asylum. Just this week the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), which runs the White House pool has started letting Talking Points Memo, Salon, and the Huffington Post in to share the pool duty. Pool duty, as you may or may not know, is when one reporter covers an event (say, President Obama’s golf game) and the notes (and frequent funny asides) are made available to the rest of the press, which they use as the basis for their reports.

Anyway, a number of establishment people are up in arms about seeing these, in the words of Michael Calderone, “online news organizations, which may or may not be bound by the same professed standards of objectivity, begin taking on the responsibilities of long-standing print publications.”

It’s not that reporters are criticizing the work of either Christina Bellantoni or Sam Stein, but some have expressed concerns about pool reports coming from left- or right-leaning news organizations that will then be used by the rest of the press corps.

“This is really troubling,” said New York Times reporter Peter Baker in an e-mail to POLITICO. “We’re blurring the line between news and punditry even further and opening ourselves to legitimate questions among readers about where the White House press corps gets its information.”

Calderone also notes that one of the reasons behind the new inclusions is that WHCA is trying to fill empty seats left open by papers who have had to cut back in recent months.

So what to do.

>>>NEXT: If Fox and MSNBC are there, why not the blogosphere?

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Jim R

I see that staid, down the middle reporting is back in fashion after the stenographer lovefest of the Bush years. Oh, I forgot, speaking truth to power and challenging the government line is only allowed when Democrats occupy the WH.

I guess Mr. Calderone missed the White House Correspondents Dinner with Steven Colbert, or ignored it like the other “intrepid” reporters in attendence.

Traditional reporters have much cause to be looking over their shoulders at the online community, and to misrepresent their reporting as hopelessly biased by people in their jammies eating Cheetos, especially when actual reporting during the Bush years among the corporate media was, with few exceptions, abhorrent and even complicit.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Rick-Spyker/1271766873 Rick Spyker

“Oh, I forgot, speaking truth to power and challenging the government line is only allowed when Democrats occupy the WH.”——–Jim, you forgot to put a /sarc tag after your comment. “Speaking truth to power”???? Besides being the most overused cliche in liberaldom, do you actually think that happens in the WH press room? And Bush had a love fest with the press? That is hilarious. Yeah, a press corp that votes about 98% of the time for the Democrats just loved W. LMFAO. Barry has gotten a free ride since day 1. Talk about a love fest. Chrissy Matthews still gets tingly feelings up his leg when someone even mentions Barry’s name. The people in the WH press corp excel at one thing: throwing softballs. Gibbs has the easiest job in DC, because they never, ever, press him on any of his evasive statements. And Barry. His interviews are worthless. He gets a hard question and then evades it the same way every time, “I think the American people are more concerned about ……”
Pablo

Um, you know Colbert was the entertainment at the Correspondent’s Dinner, right? And the waiters? Also not journalists.
Jim R

Oh, I see I stand corrected!

Because most reporters tend to vote Democratic, they didn’t serve as a conveyor belt for right wing conspiracy theories under Clinton, they didn’t misinform the public about WMD and Saddam’s 9/11 attacks, and the Bush Administration didn’t plant a gay prostitute in the WH briefing room to lob softball questions, uh huh.

I also see comedians and and lowly waiters aren’t qualified to even critique our vaunted press corps, and also coincidentally share the common trait that their employment doesn’t depend upon keeping their friggin yaps shut about lying politicians.

Thanks for clearing that up!
m

Jeff Gannon? Before Liberal Link came in and used the Triforce of Media Matters and took care of him.
realitycheck

“Many people who follow these things saw it as a bit of a watershed moment wherein the Internet was officially deemed a respectable, trustworthy news source.”

it was actually a WTF moment. what planet do you live on???!!!