Ana Marie Cox: Why We Should Get Rid of the White House Press Corps

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/17/AR2009041701900.html

Why We Should Get Rid of the White House Press Corps

By Ana Marie Cox
Sunday, April 19, 2009

Intense interest in the Obama administration has swelled the ranks of the White House press corps. Outlets such as Politico have thrown a basketball team's worth of bodies at the project, and outlets that didn't even exist until recently -- Fivethirtyeight.com, the Huffington Post -- have created their own White House correspondent positions.

Yet too often, the White House briefing room is where news goes to die.

Name a major political story broken by a White House correspondent. A thorough debunking of the Bush case for Iraqi WMD? McClatchy Newspapers' State Department and national security correspondents. Bush's abuse of signing statements? The Boston Globe's legal affairs correspondent. Even Watergate came off The Washington Post's Metro desk.

Here are some stories that reporters working the White House beat have produced in the past few months: Pocket squares are back! The president is popular in Europe. Vegetable garden! Joe Biden occasionally says things he probably regrets. Puppy!

It's not that the reporters covering the president are bad at their jobs. Most are experienced journalists at the top of their game -- and they're wasted at the White House, where scoops are doled out, not uncovered. The day of a typical White House correspondent consists, literally, of waiting to be told things. Legitimate security concerns and a tightly scripted political world keep the presidential press corps physically corralled and informationally hostage.

Of course, someone has to keep an eye on the presidency. What's wrong with the White House beat is that it's considered prestigious, as though the address the reporters work at makes their work special. I say this as someone who goes to the White House regularly and gets a thrill out of it.

But putting a horde of reporters on the site where the big decisions about the country's future are made is no guarantee of enhanced coverage. Instead of heaping more telegenic reporters into a single White House beat, break up the work among the corps of plugged-in journalists. When the president speaks out on AIG, let financial and labor reporters truth-squad him; when North Korea launches a missile, let defense and Asia specialists assess the White House reaction. Let the beleaguered journalism business prove its worth by providing something you can't get by watching the White House's YouTube channel.

And leave the puppy to me.

[WCGreen]

1. All they really are is a bunch of snarky rumor mongers...

[vaberella]

2. This is very true. However they do have unexperienced clowns there?

and even the experienced clowns ask the most ridiculous questions.... Did the President bow or not to the King/President of Saudi Arabia? I don't know did President Bush make out with him?

[Spazito]

3. Ed Henry said it best...

"I was heading into this event with the same strategy: make news on something unexpected (I won’t tell you which topics I was working on cause it would ruin the surprise for a future presser or interview with the president)."

With the exception of Helen Thomas, there are no journalists left in the WH Press Corps, there are only beauty queens wanting THEIR 15 minutes of fame by 'making news'.

[jberryhill]

4. The WH Press Corp Is America's "Royal Court"

No particular judgment intended by that, but they are the audience for the presidential stage.

[progressoid]

5. Who does she mean by "We"?

We the press corp that thinks it has an inside track? Or We the White House that has a captive, even indulgent audience?

It would be easiest for the WH to simply begin by reducing the number of press briefings but I doubt that will happen.

[Cha]

6. There was that story that was

all about edhenry.

I don't know about getting rid of them but a lot of them need to sharpen their job skills.

I love hearing about the White House Organic Garden, though..keep it coming..and monsanto can eat their own toxic shit.