San Francisco Chronicle:

Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia

The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.

White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

The Chronicle's Carla Marinucci - who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times -shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

She was part of a "print pool" - a limited number of journalists at an event who represent their bigger hoard colleagues - which White House press officials still refer to quaintly as "pen and pad" reporting.

But that's a pretty Flintstones concept of journalism for an administration that presents itself as the Jetsons. Video is every bit a part of any journalist's tool kit these days as a functioning pen that doesn't leak through your pocket.

In fact, Carla and her reporting colleague, Joe Garofoli, founded something called "Shaky Hand Productions" - the semi-pro, sometimes vertiginous use of a Flip or phone camera by Hearst reporters to catch more impromptu or urgent moments during last year's California gubernatorial race that might otherwise be missed by TV.

The name has become its own brand; often politicians even ask if anyone from Shaky Hand will show at their event. For Carla, Joe and reporters at other Hearst newsrooms where Shaky Hand has taken hold, this was an appropriate dive into use of other media by traditional journalists catering to audiences who expect their news delivered in all modes and manners.

That's the world we live in and the President of the United States claims to be one of its biggest advocates.

Just the day before Carla's Stone Age infraction, Mr. Obama was at Facebook seated next to its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and may as well have been wearing an "I'm With Mark" t-shirt for all the mutual admiration going back and forth.

"The main reason we wanted to do this is," Obama said of his appearance, "first of all, because more and more people, especially young people, are getting their information through different media. And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you've got citizens who are informed, who are engaged."

Informed, in other words, through social and other digital media where videos of news are posted.

The President and his staffers deftly used social media like Twitter and Facebook in his election campaign and continue to extol the virtues and value. Except, apparently, when it comes to the press.

So what's up with the White House? We can't say because neither Press Secretary Jay Carney nor anyone from his staff would speak on the record.

Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was "informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter." Which shouldn't be a secret in any case because it's a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate)and how local citizens get their information.

What's worse: more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla's spanking became public. Really? That's a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free.

But bravery is a challenge, in particular for White House correspondents, most of whom are seasoned and capable journalists. They live a little bit in a gilded cage where they have access to the most powerful man in the world but must obey the rules whether they make sense or not.

CBS News reporter, Mark Knoller, has publicly protested the limited press access to Obama fundraisers, calling the policy "inconsistent." "It's no way to do business," wrote Politico's Julie Mason, "especially [for] a candidate who prides himself on transparency."

A 2009 blog by the White House Director of New Media states that "President Obama is committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history."

Not last week.

Mason referred to the San Francisco St. Regis protest as "a highly newsworthy event" where "reporters had to rely on written pool reports..."

Except, thanks to Carla's quick action with her camera, they didn't.

I get that all powerful people and institutions want to control their image and their message. That's part of their job, to create a mythology that allows them to continue being powerful.

But part of the press' job is to do the opposite, to strip away the cloaks and veneers. By banning her, and by not acknowledging how contemporary media works, the White House did not just put Carla in a cage but more like one of those stifling pens reserved for calves on their way to being veal.

Carla cannot do her job to the best of her ability if she can't use all the tools available to her as a journalist. The public still sees the videos posted by protesters and other St. Regis attendees, because the technology is ubiquitous. But the Obama Administration apparently wants to give the distinct advantage to citizen witnesses at the expense of professionals.

Why? Well, they won't tell us.

Some White House reporters are grumbling almost as much as the Administration about Carla's "breaking the rules." I can understand how they'd be irritated. If you didn't get the video because you understood you weren't supposed to, why should someone else get it who isn't following the longstanding civilized table manners?

The White House Press Correspondents' Association pool reporting guidelines warn about "no hoarding" of information and also say, "pool reports must be filed before any online story or blog." While uploading her video probably was the best way to file her report, Carla may have technically busted the letter of that law.

But the guidelines also say, "Print poolers can snap pictures or take video. They are not obliged to share these pictures...but can make them available if they so choose."

Then what guidelines is the White House applying here? Again, we don't know.

What the Administration should have done is to use this incident to precipitate a reasonable conversation about changing their 1950's policies into rules more suited to 2011. Dwight Eisenhower was the last President who let some new media air into the room when he lifted the ban on cameras at press conferences in 1952.

"We've come full circle here," Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Foundation's Project for Excellence in Journalism told me today. "A newspaper reporter is being punished because she took pictures with a moving camera. We live in a world where there are no longer distinctions. The White House is trying to live by 20th century distinctions."

The President's practice not just with transparency but in other dealings with the press has not been tracking his words, despite the cool glamour and easy conversation that makes him seem so much more open than the last guy.

It was his administration that decided to go after New York Times reporter James Risen to get at his source in a book he wrote about the CIA. For us here in SF who went through the BALCO case and other fisticuffs with the George W. Bush Attorney General's prosecutors, this is deja vu.

Late today, there were hints that the White House might be backing off the Carla Fatwa.

Barack Obama sold himself successfully as a fresh wind for the 21st century. In important matters of communication, technology, openness and the press, it's not too late for him to demonstrate that.

Wise Words From JFK

Hat tip to Social Sense:



Note these words:

“And so it is to the printing press, the recorder of man’s deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news, that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help, man will be what he was born to be —free and independent.”

Now, there is some irony here in that the the press at the time covered up JFK's personal activities.

But JKK's words do emphasize the importance of the responsibility to keep the press informed and the U.S. Constitution right of dissent to any government.

And JFK's words are prophetic if we consider what the media have degenerated to today.

LA Sunsett, a commenter to the above-cited post at Social Sense stated the following:

...JFK is NOT from the same mold as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama. He's as far away as one could get, without falling off the earth....

The latest self delusion on Tea Parties from the left ..getting better

Eugene Robinson:

Trust might as well be a four-letter word. American public opinion seems to have become an unguided Weapon of Mass Suspicion, and it's not hard to understand why. But those who would exploit distrust, dissatisfaction and anger for political gain had better worry about collateral damage.

The overhyped tea party phenomenon is more about symbolism and screaming than anything else. A "movement" that encompasses gun nuts, tax protesters, devotees of the gold standard, Sarah Palin, insurance company lobbyists, "constitutionalists" who have not read the Constitution, Medicare recipients who oppose government-run health care, crazy "birthers" who claim President Obama was born in another country, a contingent of outright racists (come on, people, let's be real) and a bunch of fat-cat professional politicians pretending to be "outsiders" is not a coherent intellectual or political force.

I thought we were the 13th green elite, as well?

Great Comment from Cjk!

To this post, about the lamestream media's bitching and whining about how dangerous the Tea Parties are:

Breathtaking lying hypocrites. These pieces of shit are sooo disingenuous and mendacious that I have to practice extreme self control in order to keep from beating my monitor with a baseball bat.

They wring their hands over what are in all truth probably the most non-violent demonstrations in American history for their size.

Yet when the left demonstrates in violent form while calling for the death of the president, vice president and everybody else they disagree with, that's patriotism in action.

Monday, April 19, 2010 10:43:00 PM

Obamboozled in Bozeman

I received this via email today regarding Obama's August 14th "town hall meeting" (hah -- town hangar meeting was more like it) in Bozeman, Montana. I have edited it down a bit for length and the original source has requested anonymity.

On Wednesday, August 5th, it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his healthcare and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release any details other than the date.

On about Tuesday [we] found out that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at the airport... Our airport is actually in a very remote location.... They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar... and you can not get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public. FYI: We have many areas in... Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be shipped in!

During the week, cargo by the tons was being shipped in constantly... Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession. Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th, they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday. Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a local printing shop per White House request... 900 tickets just disappeared!

This same morning someone called in to the radio from the local UPS branch and said that thousands of dollars of lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Just think...with all of the traveling the White House is doing... One can only imagine what else we are paying for.

On Friday [we] got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal) and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man, but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd. The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and professionally made signs... (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to> protest in another area.)

Those against healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man. So we had Montana folks from all over the state with their homemade signs and their dogs with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it... all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings far away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds.

We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho . Speaking of the local media...they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned in to the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want anyone to have to think off the top of their head. It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes... the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors...everything was staged!

I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America , more like the USSR ! I was physically nauseous. [We] have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has never been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country. America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to bully a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC. Scary!

Interestingly, there was also an SEIU guy supervising the bus unloadings at the Portsmouth NH town meeting. You can see him in some of the videos. They were not as aggressive as described here, but Portsmouth was a more high-visibility event and there was lots of media around. Interesting to hear about what goes on when they think no one is watching.