33. In which direction does the balance of power tilt between the White House and the reporters that cover it? Are reporters pesky flies on an powerful institution that otherwise ignores them? Or do reporters drive the day, with the White House forced to reckon with them to accomplish anything?
To what extent can and does the White House control the reporters? Are reporters hard-hitting enough, or do they give too much deference? Could they be more hard-hitting even if they wanted to? How has this changed over time? And how is this dynamic different for Congress? Other institutions? Other countries’ governments/media?
In February 2013, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen wrote: “With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly. And future presidents from both parties will undoubtedly copy and expand on this approach.”
Consider:
- The White House chooses which media outlets get sit-down interviews with the President.
- The White House chooses which reporters to call on during press conferences.
- The White House chooses which reporters to call back for stories, or which reporters to give leaks to.
- The White House chooses how often and when to make the President available for direct interactions with the press.
- The White House can decline to speak to reporters who won’t allow it to approve or edit quotes before they’re published.
- The White House can choose media companies for the President to sit down with only if they allow the White House to set ground rules it likes.
- As Jack Shafer wrote this month: “…etiquette dictates that reporters not interrupt the president whenever he drones on like a slow leak out of a monster truck tire…”
- The White House corrals the press pool and dictates its movements, restrictions and access.
- The White House more and more can speak directly to the public online, decreasing its reliance on reporters.
- The White House can subpoena reporters to testify in a leak trial.
- The White House can monitor reporters’ communications with their sources (with legal restrictions).
- The White House has power to declassify or withhold some documents.
In New Policy, The Times Forbids After-the-Fact ‘Quote Approval’, By Margaret Sullivan (NYT Public Editor), September 20, 2012
The New York Times is drawing “a clear line” against the practice of news sources being allowed to approve quotations in stories after the fact. The practice, known as quote approval, “puts so much control over the content of journalism in the wrong place,” the executive editor Jill Abramson told me in an interview. … A memorandum on Thursday says that “demands for after-the-fact quote approval by sources and their press aides have gone too far.” … “So starting now, we want to draw a clear line on this. Citing Times policy, reporters should say no if a source demands, as a condition of an interview, that quotes be submitted afterward to the source or a press aide to review, approve or edit.”
W.H. press corps: ‘Extreme frustration’ over ‘having absolutely no access’ to Obama, By Dylan Byers (POLITICO), February 17, 2013
The White House press corps is expressing frustration over its lack of access this weekend to President Obama, who was on a golfing vacation in Florida.
A Journalist With Rare Access to Obama Had to Play by Quote Rule, By Jeremy Peters, September 11, 2012
Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” was granted extraordinary access to President Obama for his latest article in Vanity Fair. But with that access came one major condition. Like other journalists who write about Washington and presidential politics, Mr. Lewis said that he had to submit to the widespread but rarely disclosed practice of quote approval.
Garrett on White House ‘retribution’ against Fox, By POLITICO, May 1, 2009
Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett was asked today on the “Brian and the Judge” radio show about the network being snubbed during Obama’s third prime-time presser. (h/t Johnny Dollar). “That was retribution for the Fox network, broadcast network, running with its regularly scheduled programming instead of taking the White House press conference,” Garrett said. “I was warned that it might be considered as part of the overall consideration as to whether or not I’d get called on,” Garrett continued. “I wasn’t. I can add one and one to make two.”
Latest Word on the Trail? I Take It Back, By Jeremy W. Peters, July 15, 2012
The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative. They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under one major condition: the press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name. … Most reporters, desperate to pick the brains of the president’s top strategists, grudgingly agree. After the interviews, they review their notes, check their tape recorders and send in the juiciest sound bites for review. The verdict from the campaign — an operation that prides itself on staying consistently on script — is often no, Barack Obama does not approve this message.
New York Times, AP Won’t Attend Off-The-Record Eric Holder Meeting, By Huffington Post (Michael Calderone), May 29, 2013
The New York Times and Associated Press said Wednesday that they will not attend a meeting this week between Attorney General Eric Holder and the Washington bureau chiefs of several media outlets to discuss guidelines for journalists in leak investigations. Times executive editor Jill Abramson cited the Justice Department’s request that the discussion be kept off the record as a reason for not attending.
Obama calls on HuffPost for Iran question, By POLITICO, June 23, 2009
In what appeared to be a coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly about Iran. “Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said, addressing Pitney. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?” Pitney, as if ignoring what Obama had just said, said: “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.”
All the President’s Explainers, By Jack Shafer (POLITICO), February 9, 2015
…Presidents, after all, are playing on their home courts, where they set the rules and control the shot clock. A president is too well-briefed by his staff to be caught off guard by ingenious questions. No president will allow news to be made in an interview unless he wants to make news. Also, etiquette dictates that reporters not interrupt the president whenever he drones on like a slow leak out of a monster truck tire, which Obama does with Vox, at one point filibustering for 750 words — almost as long as this column! — in response to a shapeless labor question posed by Yglesias. An interview with the president may add to a journalist’s prestige, but, like White House briefings, it’s an empty ritual.
Risen: Obama administration is greatest enemy of press freedom, By POLITICO (Hadas Gold), February 17, 2015
New York Times reporter James Risen slammed Attorney General Eric Holder in a series of tweets Tuesday evening, calling the Obama administration “The greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation.”
Tensions rising over W.H. press corps access in India, By POLITICO (Edward-Isaac Dovere and Hadas Gold), January 24, 2015
Tensions between Indian and White House officials over press access are heating up, as the White House Press Corps tries to preserve its ability to cover President Barack Obama on his trip to India. Reporters who wish to cover Obama attending the Republic Day parade will have to give up all electronics, wireless access, and even bathroom breaks for upward of eight hours. If any news were to occur during the parade — an all-day spectacle of marching bands and floats, dancing children and rolling tanks — there would be something like a six-hour delay for the traveling pool to notify the rest of the American press.
Report: Justice Dept. seized multiple Fox News, White House phone records, By Dylan Byers (POLITICO), May 21, 2013
The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza has uncovered more details about the Justice Dept.’s investigation into the former State Dept. contractor who is accused of leaking classified information to James Rosen, the Fox News reporter. According to Lizza, the Justice Dept. also seized phone records of numbers associated with two White House staffers and at least five Fox News reporters.
Obama ends term with fewer pressers than Bush or Clinton, By POLITICO (Donovan Slack), January 15, 2013
President Barack Obama had fewer press conferences during his first term than George W. Bush, Bill Clinton or George H.W. Bush.
Woodward at war, By Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei (POLITICO), February 27, 2013
Bob Woodward called [Gene Sperling, a top White House economic aide], last week to tell him that in a piece in that weekend’s Washington Post, he was going to question President Barack Obama’s account of how sequestration came about — and got a major-league brushback. The Obama aide “yelled at me for about a half-hour” … Digging into one of his famous folders, Woodward said the tirade was followed by a page-long email from the aide, one of the four or five administration officials most closely involved in the fiscal negotiations with the Hill. “I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today,” the official typed. “You’re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim.” Woodward repeated the last sentence, making clear he saw it as a veiled threat. “ ‘You’ll regret.’ Come on,” he said. “I think if Obama himself saw the way they’re dealing with some of this, he would say, ‘Whoa, we don’t tell any reporter ‘you’re going to regret challenging us.’”
