Yesterday’s presidential presser added another installment to the Annals of Questions That Make News. Last April, it was Jeff Zeleny’s multipart question that made waves. This time around, The Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney did the honors, with a question that was essentially requested by the White House itself.
This is how the exchange between President Obama and Pitney went down:
Obama: Since we’re on Iran, I know Nico Pitney is here from Huffington Post.
Pitney: Thank you, Mr. President.
Obama: Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?
Pitney: Yeah, I do. I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who were courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn’t that a betrayal of the — of what the demonstrators there are working towards?
Many political observers caught onto the unusual nature of the question as soon as it happened; Politico’s Michael Calderone said that it “appeared to be a coordinated exchange.” And Howard Kurtz wrote that “in the strangest bit of orchestration I can recall at one of these events, the White House arranged for a Huffington Post reporter to ask a preordained question, and did nothing to hide it.”
So, “strange” and “coordinated” as it seemed, here’s how it came to be. Pitney has been live-blogging the Iranian protests since the election, and according to Pitney, the White House noticed:
Last night, after emailing with a few people about Obama’s press conference and what he might say, I decided to throw it open to our readers. I received a call from White House staff saying they had seen what I’d written and thought the President might be interested in receiving a question directly from an Iranian.
The White House didn’t guarantee that I would be able to ask a question. But I decided that if there was even a chance, I should try to reach out to as many Iranians as possible. With the invaluable help from some readers — Chas, Chuck, and other Iranian Americans I wish I could name because they deserve the credit — I was able to post a message in Farsi on Twitter and have my request for questions posted late last night on Balatarin. I ended up choosing the question I did because it was one of the consensus questions that many people had suggested.
Thanks also to the White House staff. They were up front about not being able to assure that a question would be asked, they never asked what the question would be, and they helped me move through the very packed briefing room when I showed up a bit late (sorry to the many toes I stepped on getting through).
Media watchers noted the unusual circumstances, but haven’t said exactly whether what Pitney and HuffPo did was a journalistic no-no, and if so, why—allowing Arianna Huffington to rail defensively in the Name of New Media.
Lots of squawking going on in the media sandbox after President Obama called on HuffPost’s Nico Pitney at today’s press conference.
Seems some of the boys can’t seem to understand why the president would have the nerve to call on someone whose Iran coverage has been praised throughout the media, from Charlie Rose to Andrew Sullivan to the Economist.
Politico’s Michael Calderone couldn’t seem to get over the order in which Nico was called on. “It was a departure from White House protocol,” he fumed (the DC equivalent of “I’m telling Mom!”).
What happened that was unforGIVable was they showed-up the shallow, callow hacks of the celebrity-struck WhiteHouse press corpse for the stenographers they have so apparently easily and complacently become so adept and comfortable at being during these previous 8 years.
#1 Posted by Woody, CJR on Wed 24 Jun 2009 at 05:05 PM
You say the audience "was led to believe that it was witnessing an organic, spontaneous exchange." But Obama made clear that it wasn't, and was successful at doing so, given that everyone, as you say, "caught onto the unusual nature of the question as soon as it happened." There wasn't much to catch. It was handed.
#2 Posted by Allison Westbrook, CJR on Wed 24 Jun 2009 at 06:48 PM
surprisingly you seem to have fallen for the beltway cw spin on this.
1. the huffpo question was actually tougher on Obama than the usual pablum, so as conspiracies go it makes no sense.
2. bush had a gay prostitute planted to do soft balls.
#3 Posted by steve, CJR on Wed 24 Jun 2009 at 07:27 PM
It didn't seem to be coordinated in the sense that the WH fed Nico Pitney the question. He deserved to be at that press conference and be called on. He's done some fantastic work on Iran. It was the place I went to get up-to-date information.
By the way, remember of journalist who was planted by the Bush WH - Jeff Gannon From WaPo:
Gannon became a target of liberal bloggers after he asked President Bush at a news conference last month a loaded and inaccurate question about how he could deal with Senate Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." They pointed to articles such as one last year in which Gannon wrote that John Kerry "might someday be known as 'the first gay president' " because he "has enjoyed a 100 percent rating from the homosexual advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), since 1995 in recognition of his support for the pro-gay agenda." Saying his family was being harassed, the reporter quit last week after online critics began digging into his background.
Gannon, who worked for Talon News and GOPUSA, denied any antigay writing last week, but did not return calls for comment yesterday and has told other journalists he will not comment on the racy Web sites. The contretemps sparked questions about why the White House had regularly cleared him for briefings, especially since he had been denied a press pass on Capitol Hill, where reporters control the credentialing process
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27730-2005Feb15.html
#4 Posted by Sandy, CJR on Thu 25 Jun 2009 at 02:37 AM
Steve and Sandy seem oblivious to irony. It's a safe bet they both engaged in orgasms of outrage over Gannon. Now they use Gannon as a precedent to defend their messiah.
#5 Posted by j.a.m., CJR on Thu 25 Jun 2009 at 10:02 AM
Diva mentality on the part of the press corps? They just don't get it, it seems. They aren't the center of the universe.
#6 Posted by Tom Hickey, CJR on Thu 25 Jun 2009 at 10:55 AM
Even Jeff Gannon did not coordinate with the White House on questions to be asked, Sandy. And, by the way, the liberal blogosphere and mainstream journalism made a big deal out of Gannon (Editor & Publisher was obsessed by the case, as a review of its many stories on Gannon suggest), in contrast to this kerfuffle.
#7 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 25 Jun 2009 at 12:50 PM
You post contains a number of factual inaccuracies, Ms. Bachko.
The problem is that Pitney asked a question that had been solicited by the White House.
This is incorrect. If you have been reading Pitney's work, he solicited questions from his sources BEFORE the WH contacted him. The WH, who like everyone else who has been interested in the extraordinary events in Iran, had been reading his live-blogging, and approached him about attending the presser. Even if you have not been following his work, he has given any number of interviews reiterating that fact. One would think, Ms. Bochko, that bloggers on a MEDIA WATCHDOG site would refrain from posting bad information, and would seek comment from people whose work they attempt to disparage.
In addition, Calderone, whom you quote uncritically, has it wrong as well. To my knowledge, Calderone has never been a White House press correspondent, but a reporter who has, Olivier Knox from Agence France Presse, tells us something different.
//
Olivier Knox of Agence France-Press covered the White House of President George W. Bush. He says he understands Milbank's concerns, but he argues that Pitney wasn't compromised.
Here's the big secret, Knox says: The White House gives reporters a heads-up in advance of news conferences fairly frequently.
"I can tell you that during the Bush administration I was occasionally told I would get a question," Knox says.
He says it was a courtesy to ensure that Pitney was there instead of monitoring on TV while composing a story on his computer. And he never doubted that aides to then-President Bush, or President Obama, could anticipate what questions he might pose.
But Knox added, "they never knew, and never asked, what question I was asking."
//
Source: One Question To Obama, One Heck Of A Backlash : NPR
Please update your post with corrections to your mistaken assertions and your uncritically repeated, error-filled quotes.
#8 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 26 Jun 2009 at 05:52 PM
I'm just wondering how a media watchdog "journalist" gets away with writing factual inaccuracies like the title "Planted Questions" when the question CLEARLY wasn't planted, like this statement The problem is that Pitney asked a question that had been solicited by the White House. when the question wasn't "solicited," and a statement like this: But the audience watching the presser wasn’t made aware of any of this. when if you actually watched the press conference, Obama made quite clear the circumstances under which Nico Pitney had the opportunity to ask the question.
You have failed to offer a shred of evidence of your erroneous contentions. How do you get away with being a "media watchdog," and what are we to make of your credibility going forward, Ms. Bachko? Is this kind of sloppy, inaccurate writing full of unsubstantiated and false assertions and smears typical of your work?
#9 Posted by James, CJR on Sun 28 Jun 2009 at 10:41 PM