Politico wonders: Has Obama’s media strategy made government more powerful?
posted at 11:21 am on February 19, 2013 by Ed Morrissey
File this under the heading Things That Would Have Been Helpful in 2012. Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen discuss the media strategy of Barack Obama in sidelining the hard-news political reporters in favor of softball venues such as Entertainment Tonight and more recently Golf Digest, which got the treasured Tiger Woods scoop. The two now wonder — a few months after it might have made a difference — whether the media’s lack of vigor in keeping Obama accountable has tipped the balance of power dangerously toward the executive branch:
President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.
Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated. Instead, the mastery mostly flows from a White House that has taken old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting). And it’s an equal opportunity strategy: Media across the ideological spectrum are left scrambling for access.
The results are transformational. With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly. And future presidents from both parties will undoubtedly copy and expand on this approach.
“The balance of power used to be much more in favor of the mainstream press,” said Mike McCurry, who was press secretary to President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Nowadays, he said, “The White House gets away with stuff I would never have dreamed of doing. When I talk to White House reporters now, they say it’s really tough to do business with people who don’t see the need to be cooperative.”
“Not for the reason conservatives suspect”? What reason might it be, then? When George W. Bush went more than a month without a press conference, the political press made sure to accuse the White House of being afraid to have him answer questions, mocked Bush’s ability to communicate, and painted the Bush administration as insular. We’re lucky to get four actual press conferences a year from Obama, and yet only occasionally has the political press made an issue of it — and usually only after an obviously intentional slap on a non-issue, like the Tiger Woods story.
VandeHei and Allen push back on the notion that the press is in bed with the White House:
Conservatives assume a cozy relationship between this White House and the reporters who cover it. Wrong. Many reporters find Obama himself strangely fearful of talking with them and often aloof and cocky when he does. They find his staff needlessly stingy with information and thin-skinned about any tough coverage. He gets more-favorable-than-not coverage because many staffers are fearful of talking to reporters, even anonymously, and some reporters inevitably worry access or the chance of a presidential interview will decrease if they get in the face of this White House.
Then why are we only hearing about this now? It seems that the press only really cares about that when a Republican lives in the White House.
And then there’s this:
The super-safe, softball interview is an Obama specialty. The kid glove interview of Obama and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Steve Kroft of CBS’s “60 Minutes” is simply the latest in a long line of these. Obama gives frequent interviews (an astonishing 674 in his first term, compared with 217 for President George W. Bush), but they are often with network anchors or local TV stations, and rarely with the reporters who cover the White House day to day.
Well, who exactly lets the White House get away with that? Would Steve Kroft have tossed softballs to a President Mitt Romney the way he did with Obama? Hardly.
For a good example of this point, here are the two men discussing skeet shooting as an example, and avoiding practically all mention of the lack of public accountability on real issues tilting the balance of power toward the executive:
Even the skeet shooting story is a good example of how the press applies a double standard, and uses a non-story to distract from their own lack of assertiveness. The reason conservatives scoffed at Obama’s claims was that he said he went skeet shooting “all the time” as a response to criticism over his gun-control proposals, attempting to claim full membership in the sport-shooting clique. After the White House published a single picture of Obama firing a shotgun, the press picked up the White House attack line of “skeet birthers” in order to ridicule not the politician who wanted to limit rights, but the people who criticized the politician.
Can you imagine that happening with a Republican President? Neither can I. Perhaps we need a Republican President at all times so that the press can act like the independent watchdog that it believes itself to be, rather than the lapdog that it has become under a Democratic President.
Update: Not unrelated — NBC News hires David Axelrod. Doesn’t sound like the media is punishing Obama or his advisers for this strategy.
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As I just posted HotairLib has their whole head up their six o clock.
hamradio on May 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Who wrote the speech? Or are you just praising the messenger?
mixplix on May 24, 2013 at 2:57 PM
Connect the dots: journolist meeting by invitation only at the White House on, what Tuesday?, “big”speech by Obama on Thursday, lame stream media fawning over speech on Friday. Who would have seen that coming, huh?
parke on May 24, 2013 at 2:58 PM
They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.
They are just trying to massage it so that they don’t offend the Muslims, international Libtards and their own sensibilities anymore than necessary.
A few Muslim terrorists here and there are quite expendable to this Administration despite their sympathies for them. These drone attacks also do much deflect any potential criticism that the Administration is weak in dealing with such matters.
Dr. ZhivBlago on May 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM
MSNBC is nothing but a left wing propaganda machine serving their master, Obama.
rplat on May 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM
I believe that he was officially nominated 10 days after he was sworn in. Wow! The WON really worked long hours that week and a half to earn that POS medal. During those ten days he ordered NO DRONE STRIKES to keep his peaceful record clean.
fred5678 on May 24, 2013 at 3:22 PM
Obama: Don’t worry about that Ben Ghazi guy. I killed Bin Laden, and Bush didn’t!
And Obummer still wants to close Gitmo? Good luck with that–not even Upchuck Schumer was willing to hold trials in New York!
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM
They just changed the definition of terrorist. They used to be jihadis from the Middle East–now they’re Minutemen in Arizona and Tea Partiers in Ohio.
Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM
Erika, sometimes your writing shows signs of rivaling even the Master of Snark himself, Allahpundit. Good work!
KS Rex on May 24, 2013 at 3:45 PM
I love how crazy Al invoked the Nobel Peace Prize in praise of a speech that spoke about dropping bombs on people’s head. Maybe it was the “fewer” bombs than before that raised this to historic levels.
Do they even know or care that they are morons.
marnes on May 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM
His speech made less sense than Bluto’s Animal House Speech and was far less entertaining. Nothing less than base rallying time. Never thought I would say this, but Code Pink was the best part.
DDay on May 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM
Sperling posted this at the Examiner on May 23 about this “historic speech of Obysmal’s:
You see, we are just not working hard enough to “work with the Muslim American community” who are a “fundamental part of the American family.” Watch out, too, because Obysmal is again trying to limit the impact of the Internet.
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:22 PM
That Chris Hayes is a bit of a twink, isn’t he?
onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:25 PM
Obama apparently gave two speeches yesterday and I watched the other one.
myiq2xu on May 24, 2013 at 5:03 PM
Nah. I’d detest the little pissant s.o.b. if he was white…or Asian…or any one of the myriad of made-up racial divisions.
Solaratov on May 24, 2013 at 11:00 PM
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