Are American reporters adopting that perceiving-slights-around-every-corner thing that some British reporters seem to have? (When in London…)
The New York Times’s Helene Cooper is miffed that President Obama broke from the “standard form” of “‘joint press availabilities’ — bureaucratic lingo for press conferences where leaders from two different countries stand next to each other and take questions from reporters” (the “standard form” being, apparently, “that each official’s press corps gets the same number of questions”). Yesterday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown fielded four questions from U.K. reporters and President Obama entertained just three from the White House press corps.
This? On top of the missing swag bags?
Poor Helene, she's embarrassed herself once again. Earlier in the week, she was sooooooooooooooooooo bored with all that talk about ...policy!!!! at the press conference. Now she has her claws out for three questions instead of four. Hmph. Bush only had two-and-twos.
I'm sure Ms. Cooper is a fine person. At the very least, she ought to lay off the blogging. It exposes her superficial cattiness and limited intellect, NOT an attractive attribute in a national political writer.
#1 Posted by Tom, CJR on Fri 3 Apr 2009 at 09:04 AM