Ari Fleischer on "the grid in front of" the President

[laststeamtrain]

Glenn Greenwald
Wednesday Feb. 11, 2009 05:52 EST
Ari Fleischer on "the grid in front of" the President

Daily Kos' Meteor Blades points to a rare moment of television candor last night, as Ari Fleischer explained to Bill O'Reilly how and why the White House determined which reporters were allowed to ask questions at Press Conferences (only establishment journalists seated by Fleischer "in the grid in front of" the President -- not "dot coms and other oddballs who come in there"):

Indeed. It was extremely important to the White House that only "reporters" such as NBC's David Gregory, CNN's John King, Fox's Jim Angle and friends be allowed to ask questions -- because they could be relied upon to stay within the approved White House script. And that's exactly what they always did.

<snip>

The only risk of script-deviation would come from allowing reporters outside of this favored establishment circle -- i.e., ones who are something other than royal court spokespeople -- to ask questions. Being chosen by Ari Fleischer to "sit in the grid in front of the President" is probably the most embarrassing indictment of a journalist's integrity as one can imagine, though they undoubtedly consider it a proud hallmark of their importance and prestige. Indeed, as Meteor Blades notes, one of the "reporters" placed "in the grid in front of the President" along with David Gregory, John King and Jim Angle -- and thus authorized to ask questions -- was Jeff Gannon, who asked questions like this. Clearly, access to the favored grid was based on nothing other than a reporter's willingness only to ask the questions the President wanted to hear.

At his first presidential Press Conference this week, Barack Obama also had a pre-scripted list of reporters who he called on, but -- to the White House's credit -- it included the excellent Sam Stein of The Huffington Post as well as Helen Thomas, who asked the only two unpredictable, meaningfully adversarial questions (Stein cited Pat Leahy's argument about the need for full-scale investigations into Bush crimes while Thomas challenged Obama's condemnation of Iran's nuclear program by asking who the only Middle Eastern country was with a nuclear weapon). And Americablog's Joe Sudbay was credentialed to attend the Press Conference, though wasn't called on.

<more>

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/11/journalists/index.html

[malaise]

1. Excellent article

Ari is a really stupid moron for questioning Pres Obama's picks. Rushican politburo members have collective amnesia.

[Submariner]

2. This just confirms what we all knew from day 1 of the Bush junta

Nothing new here. It was the presidency of an ignorant incompetent coward. Bush was and is nothing more than a world class pussy.

[blm]

7. and we were also 100% right that corpmedia was complicit with their protection of BushInc.

the entire time.

[truebrit71]

9. Exactly...and they're STILL doing the bidding of their coroporate masters...

...within the last couple of weeks on the Early Show on CBS they have had on Bill O'Really, Mann Coulter and EVERYTIME they discuss the stimulus bill they have a rethuglican Senator on..

Yup...that damned librul media at work again...:eyes:

[NNN0LHI]

3. Recommended

[Time for change]

4. The American people should hear a lot more about this.

[loudsue]

10. They can't and won't. We're too busy dealing with History according to Rush.

Like, "the New Deal prolonged the great depression, and WWII was what brought us out of the great depression." i.e., Government hurts recovery and war is good. THAT is history according to Rush Limpballs and the rightwing media.

Something has GOT to be done about what we are being forced to listen to on the radio and tv...on our OWN air waves.

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. .....

"It was extremely important to the White House that only "reporters" such as NBC's David Gregory, CNN's John King, Fox's Jim Angle and friends be allowed to ask questions"

and male hookers.

[DCKit]

13. "Presstitutes" one and all - with the exception of one Helen Thomas.

Gannon was simply an example of what we should expect in the future of the MSM.

On Edit:
Other than cutting and pasting Republicon talking points memos (as faux was recently caught doing - typos and all), I'm wondering how the shift from "stenographer" to "reporter" is going for them. Must be a real bitch.

[gratuitous]

6. No surprises here

And isn't it nice to know that such leading journalistic lights as David Gregory could be counted on to ask safe, predictable questions? For his efforts, Mr. Gregory gets the moderator chair at Meet the Press. Congratulations, David! It's like you're King Whore on Hooker Island.

[annabanana]

8. Are Fleisher should be in jail. He was one of the

CIA outers who was protected by Libby's stonewalling and B*sh's subsequent commutation of sentence.

[Johonny]

11. Ari is so a typicial rethug

Openly lies about a situation and is either too stupid to understand there is video of Bush calling on dot com people or just so arrogant to care what the truth is. The sadder thing is Bill-O is too stupid to catch anyone in a lie.

[TwilightGardener]

12. Figured this out already--but this is why I refuse to watch Press the Meat ever again--

Gregory can go to hell. I miss Timmeh.