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

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

» 6 comments

The concern over “blurring the line between news and punditry even further” is a legitimate one — the blogosphere is not known for it’s calm, centrist views. Of course, neither is much of the cable world and no one has ever accused Chuck Todd or Major Garrett of filing biased pool reports even though plenty of people will tell you the stations themselves are slanted in one direction or the other (in fact the White House made a specific point of excluding Major Garrett from its criticism of Fox).

Meanwhile Politico has been filing pool reports since 2007 and while the site itself is not know for its removed take on things, I don’t recall any complaints being made. Not to mention my twitter feed is overwhelmed by the regular tweeting of folks like Jake Tapper, Mark Knoller, Chuck Todd, and Major Garrett, all of whom are able, to my eye, to separate view from fact. As every reporter has done time out of mind. I asked our own White House correspondent Tommy Christopher what he thought:

The point is, pool reporting is more of a chore than anything else. The trick isn’t to figure out the reporter’s ideological bias, but rather their level of annoyance. Some have fun with it, some are really dry, and every once in awhile, really cranky. For every state dinner, there’s a thousand phone calls to the prime minister of Micronesia that you have to sit through.

So a tempest in a tea pot? More like growing pains. Seems to me the WHCA should be lauded for making this decision when it did, instead of when it was forced to by the reality of the media world. Meanwhile, who even knows what the media world will look like in a year. I suspect in all likelihood pool reports will be twittered out instead of filed, for the world to read (follow Mark Knoller for a glimpse of what that might be like).

It should also probably be noted that as traditional newspapers become more SEO aware in an attempt to stay alive, so has the blogosphere begun adopting some of the long-held journalistic practices as the expand. Moreover, the level of transparency that comes along with the web, and web coverage, makes decisions like these less scary. Also, it’s inevitable. Because eventually if the Internet isn’t let in to these things on equal footing and allowed to prove themselves we are going to be getting all our reports from either the New York Times or Politico, and no one (including the NYT) wants that.

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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???!!!