Friday, July 10, 2009

White House Press Corps Attends Obama July 4th Shindig...as Guests

I don't wanna hear any more liberals mocking conservatives for pointing out the bias of the MSM after the White House press corps attended Obama's Independence Day party as guests.

Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy...

There is a cosmic irony at work here: The party was "closed press." (Ha!) It was covered, under onerous restrictions, by a pool reporter—the Baltimore Sun's Paul West. West was ushered in by White House staffers for a mere 40 minutes, so he could record the president's remarks. He was kept in a pen so that he wouldn't run amok and interview someone. He shouted questions at Obama as he worked the rope line, which the president ignored. Then he was taken away. West wrote up his blindered account of the party and then e-mailed it to the White House press corps, many of whom were actually at the party, outside of the pen, hanging out with all the other guests. And then, because they had temporarily signed away the right to do their jobs in exchange for facetime with staffers, a few cold Stoudt's American Pale Ales, and some corn on the cob, their news organizations picked up that pool report and used it to tell their readers what happened at the party. This is how the press covers the White House.

Astonishing.

Reporters do attend events as civilians, of course. And most news organizations get tickets to attend concerts, programs, plays, movies, and so on, which are usually snapped up by bigwigs and their families. But this is probably the first time that the White House press corps attended a White House event that was covered only by a pool reporter.