Who gets (and controls) the “First Crack”? Remember back in October of this year when @PressSec Gibbs tweeted about his “first crack” initiative? (What happened to that?) It gave the public the opportunity to ask Gibbs the first question at a press briefing by tweeting a question at Gibbs with the hashtag #1; he would then answer it on video before the briefing. Nice open government initiative, right? Clint Hendler had his own first, second, and third questions for Gibbs. And then a word or two of his own.
Gibbs and his staff will choose the question they are answering from a buffet of those offered up by hashtag, and can pick to match their preferred message of the day. They will have time to script their response. And the questioner will have no opportunity for follow-up.
And while there is of course a difference between a question before a briefing and the first question at a briefing, the Gibbs tweet seems to set up this P.R. exercise as part of the briefing process.
It’s not a bad thing. But it’s definitely not the same thing.
Who’s Undercutting Obama? Former New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston slammed the press office in an early review from way back in January 2009. He was having trouble trying to reach Gibbs’s team for comment; what he found was incompetence. “I have called 202-456-2580, the main number for the White House press office, going back to the Nixon administration,” wrote Johnston. “Never has anyone in the press office declined to spell his name, give his job title, or hung up, even after the kind of aggressive exchanges that used to be common between journalists and flacks—and between journalists and high government officials, for that matter.” A White House’s dealing with journalists, “sets a tone that will influence the administration’s ability to communicate its messages, especially those Obama messages that run counter to deeply ingrained cultural myths about the economy, taxes, and the role of government.” By the end of the piece, Johnston reports, “I’m still waiting for Gibbs, or someone with authority to speak on the record, to call me back for that interview I wanted to start with—and now for a second one about how the White House press office operates. You can reach me at 585-230-0558.”
Gibbs Gaffes Again, Tradition Continues Lefty readers may recall last August’s famous Gibbs gaffe, when the press secretary spoke of a “professional” left that needed to be “drug tested” for comparing the president to his predecessor. “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president,” he opined. Ouch. In honor of that gaffe—not Gibbs’s first, not his last—I compiled a video package of press secretary gaffe’s past. The list included another Gibbs gem: responding to a question about Dick Cheney, Gibbs retorted, “Well, I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next most popular member of the Republican cabal.”
Kicking Gibbs Around Gibbs showed up many a time in our more lighthearted Kicker blog. Highlights reel: Megan Garber noting Gibbs’s favorite evasive maneuver; my own word-cloud tribute to his Twitter account; Liz Cox Barrett on Gibbs’s funny side, and Politico’s noting of it; Alexandra Fenwick’s note on Gibbs’s Palin-hand-memo standup routine; and Barrett on a mini spat between press corps vet Helen Thomas and then newbie Gibbs—“you people” indeed.
We end with a video tribute to the outgoing press-herder, courtesy of CNN. Farewell, Mr. Gibbs, and we look forward to our next foil.
"Slammed" is not the kind of verb choice I would expect from CJR referring to my piece that was critical of the Obama Administration's early press operation problems. "Criticized" is more like it.
The press shop continues to suffer from severe problems which contribute to the hostile tone of much coverage.
First, no one I have spoken to since then seems to have any actual journalism experience. Second, there continues to be an attitude of not responding to questions that are disliked (other reporters told me of all sorts of problems in this area, including one who says a WH spokesperson simply hung up). Third, the use of canned email statements that are minimally or not at all responsive rather than a) providing competent people to explain or b) just answering questions. There is also little understanding of, and respect for, deadlines.
What has improved is that a few WH people, notably in my experience Jenn Psaki, pay attention and act in response to complaints of nonresponsiveness.
#1 Posted by David Cay Johnston, CJR on Thu 6 Jan 2011 at 05:42 PM
The reason why politics and the press have such a hostile undercurrent is because the press has proven itself to be a self interested player, not public interested player as it should be.
Therefore you had 8 years of press demonization of Clinton over wingbat conspiracies (which boiled down to nothing but angst over tax hikes for the large part) and 5 years of Bush worship while the government committed gross violations of law (privacy, detention, selective treatment by the justice department), decorum (paid propaganda and propagandists), trust (lobbyists as head regulators, throwing money off planes in Iraq with no oversight of funds), and unsustainable tax cuts.
The Bush years proved that the press will play opposition to those that oppose their corporate values and will play ball with those that support them. The government cannot expect a fair shake from a press who is out for themselves and so they are very careful with what information gets released and very careful with how to manage the press.
They created a system for a self interested press in which good behavior is rewarded with access and scoops, and bad behavior is frozen out. And this system works (it did very effectively under the Bush Administration) except in those few cases where the press representative isn't motivated by self interest and doesn't abide by the constraints of the system. In those cases, the government will be hostile and non-forthcoming because it can't manage the coverage. Those guys have to be labeled something like "the Professional Left" and dismissed as nabobs of negativity.
Early on, the Obama tried to apply that approach to the misbehaved network known as Fox "News" but that organization was a little different. It's self interest isn't dependent on access, it thrives on persecution. When Fox's corporate buddies jumped in and formed a narrative of a president trying to delegitimize the press, and not just a partisan network, Obama relented. So there are 3 categories as I can figure it:
1) people dependent on access and are manipulatable because of this need.
2) people who are not manipulatable by this need and must be marginalized.
3) people who are not manipulatable and cannot be marginalized, so therefore they must be feared.
That is what Gibbs left behind him as he walks from the podium. The most honest people are marginalized and attacked, the most sycophantic and wild eyed aggressive are catered to, and everybody who matters rewards the Administration when they do things in support of corporate values like supporting unsustainable tax cuts and disciplining the lower tiers of the public with less government help.
And Ben Bernanke, running one of the most opaque institutions while it took its most opaque (and pro-corporate) actions, gets to be man of the year.
A corrupt press leads to a corrupt government leads to a broken society.
This is one of the reasons why wikileaks and other transparency pushes (by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson for instance) are so revolutionary. The system breaks down as the access to information becomes decoupled from good behavior.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 6 Jan 2011 at 10:31 PM
Gibbs and the whole Obama administration press shop has been a disaster and a dismal failure from day one. Gibbs is a political operative, and I'm sure he did a good job and was effective during the presidential campaign. But the White House press office calls for a non-political, professional communications team, and Gibbs' shop was not it.
The White House Press Sec should have some knowledge and understanding of professional news operations. They aren't there to spar with reporters and dance around and tell jokes, hanging on the podium like a clown; they are there to provide relevant information to professional reporters. Gibbs wasn't it. He was sarcastic, snide, always late, frequently unreachable, played favorites with scoops and quotes, and generally acted like the smartass at the top of the class. This behavior has been clearly unhelpful and detrimental, and I'll be glad to see him go.
I'd like to see Jay Carney step up. He's a long time, experienced journalist with a clear understanding of news operations. He's done a great job in Biden's shop -- and hey! Biden's one of the most popular "gets" in the administration. You kind of wonder how Carney's holding up!
I share most people's dislike of the bigfoot prima donnas and drama queens in the White House Press Corps -- Chip Reid, Ed Henry, the AP crew; but most of the reporters -- especially the print reporters -- sitting in the briefing room are hardworking professionals. It behooves the White House to maintain a professional relationship with those reporters, to try to accommodate their professional needs. I mean, the White House can't answer the phones, answer an email, be on time for a briefing, give a straight, non-snarky answer to a legitimate question? I hope the next Press Sec can do at least that.
Goodbye Mr. Gibbs indeed.
#3 Posted by James, CJR on Thu 6 Jan 2011 at 10:38 PM
Hear hear, Thimbles. I agree with you, in principle, on the poor ethics of the press vis-a-vis govt officials and their cronies, and the powerful incentives for the press NOT to expose ugly truths. (I disagree, however, that corporations are corrupt or immoral per se. To me, the inherent evil is corporate-state incest [corporatism, or "soft fascism"], corporate control of govt, and govt control of industry. All of which, I surmise, you deplore to great extent as well.)
From what I've seen, WH press conferences are only negligibly more admirable than exercises in state-worship. It seems that the only worth-a-damn journos have been denied access — or cast out as extremists, rabble-rousers, anti-Semites, etc. — simply for asking the root-striking questions and drawing politically incorrect, if factual, conclusions. I long for the occasion when CJR is prompted to write a piece titled "Goodbye WH Steno."
#4 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Fri 7 Jan 2011 at 01:26 AM