Ari Fleischer on "the grid in front of" the President [View All]

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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.

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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.

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