Remember the good old days of 2008, when then-presidential candidate Barack Obama promised his administration would be “the most transparent in history”? Apparently, the Democratic occupant of the White House and his press staff don't, which has led to reporters accusing them of disrupting the balance between government transparency and freedom of the press.
In an article written by Paul Farhi on Tuesday in the Washington Post, the reporter stated: “White House press-pool reports are supposed to be the news media’s eyes and ears on the president, an independent chronicle of his public activities.” However, sometimes the administration “plays an unseen role in shaping the story” by steering coverage in “a more favorable direction.”
Press-pool reports are written throughout the day by “reporters selected on a rotating basis by the independent White House Correspondents’ Association” and are sent to the White House press office, “which in turn distributes them to a vast email list comprised of other journalists and government officials,” Farhi noted.
However, he stated, a number of journalists “who cover the White House say Obama’s press aides have demanded -- and received -- changes in press-pool reports” before they are disseminated.
“The disputed items involve mostly trivial issues” such as spelling or small fact corrections, Farhi indicated, but the concept that “the White House has become involved at all represents a troubling trend for journalists.”
Farhi then stated:
The decades-old White House press pool was created as a practical compromise between the news media and the nation’s chief executive.
Instead of having a mob of journalists jostling to cover the president at every semi-public function, a handful of reporters are designated to act as proxies, or “poolers,” for the entire press corps.
“The overwhelming majority of pool reports pass through the White House without delay or amendment,” he indicated, but some members of the press have had to acquiesce to the administration's demands or their articles would not have been distributed.
One example Farhi quoted took place in 2011, when then-press secretary Jay Carney “objected to a pool report that included a mention of first lady Michelle Obama working out at a hotel gym during a presidential trip to Asia.”
“Carney told the pool reporter, David Nakamura of the Washington Post, that the workout was part of the first lady’s personal time and therefore off limits to reporters,” Farhi stated. “Nakamura disagreed but reluctantly deleted the line to ensure that his report would be sent.”
On the other hand -- Tom DeFrank, contributing editor of the National Journal -- said that in his decades of covering the president, he’s been asked by aides to change something in a pool report only once -- during the Ford administration,” Farhi stated, and DeFrank refused to go along with the request.
“My view is the White House has no right to touch a pool report,” DeFrank said. “It’s none of their business. If they want to challenge something by putting out a statement of their own, that’s their right. It’s also their prerogative to jawbone a reporter, which often happens. But they have no right to alter a pool report unilaterally.”
That is also the view of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which negotiates with the White House press staff on issues involving journalists, Farhi noted.
“The independence of the print pool reports is of utmost importance to us,” said Christi Parsons, a Los Angeles Times reporter who is the WHCA’s new president. “Our expectation is that the White House puts out the pool report and asks questions later.”
When asked about the topic of changes to pool articles, chief deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said in a statement:
We value the role of the independent press pool, which provides timely, extensive and important coverage of the president and his activities while at the White House and around the world.
That is why, at the request of the White House Correspondents Association, the White House has distributed 20,000 pool reports in the past six years, and we will continue to offer that facilitation for journalists as they work to chronicle the presidency.
As NewsBusters previously reported, the “much-anticipated Obama transparency” had failed to materialize by January of 2010. Two and a half years later, Cable News Network host Tom Foreman admitted that the president wasn't “the champion of transparency he'd promised to be.”
With less than two and a half years left in Obama's “lame duck” term, it looks like the president's “transparency” pledge will go down in history as just another of his many broken promises. Perhaps the outcome of the mid-term election on November 4 will make sure he doesn't keep any more of his extreme proposals, such as initiating ObamaCare and "ending the war in Iraq."
