Monday, February 09, 2009
A brief note on the President's press conference
President Obama is obviously selecting reporters in a pre-determined order -- he was looking for Chip Reid, the chief White House correspondant of CBS News, in the wrong place. Recognizing that George W. Bush did not hold a huge number of press conferences, I do not remember that he so obviously predetermined the reporters he would call upon. Am I wrong? Either way, what does a reporter or media company have to do to move up Barack Obama's list?
MORE: The questions are all over the place, so even if he picked the questioners it does not seem that he picked the questions. That said, the "tough" questions are all coming from the left -- the HuffPo dude, Helen Thomas, and so forth. But then, all the questions seem to be coming from the left.
11 Comments:
By 
JPMcT, at
Mon Feb 09, 08:34:00 PM:
Genuflect on their left knee and kiss his ring...
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Mon Feb 09, 08:48:00 PM:
"Recognizing that George W. Bush did not hold a huge number of press conferences..."
Exactly. It's easier just to skip the whole press conference thing all together.
And... yes I remember being Bush being thrown off a couple of times when a 'reporter' went off script.
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Feb 09, 08:57:00 PM:
Catchy! Great hearing from you.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Mon Feb 09, 09:09:00 PM:
Hey Tigerhawk. Just happened to be checking out your blog while watching at the press conference... now I'm on to Heroes.
I did think Obama's exit from the press conference was a bit awkward. He needs to work on that.
By 
, at
Mon Feb 09, 09:11:00 PM:
"He needs to work on that".
Well, he is an amateur, at just about everything important.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Mon Feb 09, 09:15:00 PM:
You mean like winning elections... what does that say about the losers.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Feb 09, 10:15:00 PM:
Actually, that's what he has the most practice at.
And that he won says very little about him, but a lot about us. That's how elections work, you know.
That he's had to fall back on 'I won' twice (once with Congressional Republicans, and once with military officers) in his dealings with opposition in less than a month says a little something about him, too.
By , at
Mon Feb 09, 10:19:00 PM:
I heard CNN talking about how the president calls on questioners. He always does it from a list and the questioners are notified in advance they will be called on. The Press office doesn't actually say they want to review questions in advance, but you can always tell which questions Obama has prepped for and which ones he has not, by his comfort in response. The reporters obviously know that if you were to pull a Jake Tapper your future ability to ask questions would be zilch.
By reader_iam, at
Mon Feb 09, 11:43:00 PM:
A quibble, assuming Ari Fleischer knows what he's talking about and was telling the truth: Tonight, following Obama's press conference, he stated, quite explicitly (and in response to a statement that Bush didn't predetermine calling upon reporters), that in fact Bush did; that he, Ari, himself made up charts of reporters/reporter zones to avoid and call upon; and that this is pretty much standard practice. In fact, he noted that Clinton was an exception in doing it otherwise (though he didn't specify whether that was in general, or sometimes), but that in general, such presidential events employ that practice, and that he wouldn't recommend them doing otherwise.
Just a note, as I said. Can't verify personally. But it was an interesting insight (/view/counterview).
By Purple Avenger, at
Tue Feb 10, 07:47:00 AM:
... what does that say about the losers.
Yea, the republicans need to brush up on false promises quite a bit.
By , at
Tue Feb 10, 07:53:00 AM:
Originally, the President wanted a stimulus package that was "targeted, timely and temporary." Why doesn't anybody ever ask him how much of the bill written by Congressional Democrats meets that standard?
