Leader of WH reporters doesn't think credentialling policy needs changing.

[katinmn]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000800651
White House Press Meeting Yields No Credentialing Changes, Yet

By Joe Strupp

Published: February 15, 2005 5:25 PM ET

NEW YORK Don't expect major changes to the White House press-credentialing process any time soon.

Following a meeting today between the leadership of the White House Correspondents' Association and President Bush's press secretary, Scott McClellan, neither side seemed to be in a hurry to alter the current system, which has drawn criticism amid the recent "Jeff Gannon" scandal.

After a 30-minute sit-down with McClellan, WHCA President Ron Hutcheson said he believed the current system was fine and hesitated to have the correspondents' association play a bigger role in distributing press passes. "I'm not sure we need to do anything," Hutcheson told E&P. "I'm not comfortable in passing judgment on who is a journalist and who isn't. My overriding view is that if I am going to make a mistake, it is going to be on letting people in rather than keeping people out."

(And this guy is the president of the WH Correspondents' Association??? No wonder our media has lost all respect. I don't think anyone expects him to hand out passes. I would have expected him to demand integrity and ethical behavior.)

But Hutcheson said the full nine-person WHCA board will consider the matter on Feb. 28, and, if the board members want to seek changes to the process or vote to play a greater role in it, he will not stop them. "The board may feel differently than me," he added. "We will go back and tell them what are the criteria."

-snip-

[verdalaven]

1. Perhaps they should insist that journalists

at the very least use their real names.