Reporters at the White House took the rare step on Tuesday of publicly registering displeasure with a lack of access to President Obama for questions, noting that it has been a month since Mr. Obama took a query from the press corps that covers him on a daily basis.
The issue was raised at Tuesday's White House news briefing by Associated Press reporter Jim Kuhnhenn, who pressed Press Secretary Jay Carney on the matter with television cameras rolling:
Q If I could ask on another point, the President today once again didn’t take questions from the White House press corps when he met King Abdullah. We haven’t had an opportunity to ask the President anything since I believe the near-government shutdown. And I was wondering why is that? Why -- he’s in the middle of -- he’s taken up a lot of issues, from immigration to debt relief to the Middle East. Why --
MR. CARNEY: Well, I’m sure, Jim, you’ll have opportunities -- for those of you who are traveling, he will be taking questions on our upcoming foreign trip. And as you know, he has given some interviews in that time to journalists who have asked some questions about all of the pressing issues of the day. And he’ll continue to do that. I think his track record of taking questions and giving interviews is very strong and will continue to be strong going forward.
That last statement by Carney might be disputed by many who cover the President on a regular basis as the Obama White House has restricted what used to be a regular way to get a question or two at the President, when he meets with world leaders in the Oval Office.
That setting was commonly used when I first started covering Washington news during the Reagan Administration, and has been a parcel of our coverage and access to the President through the Bush, Clinton and Bush II Administrations.
That is, until the Obama White House decided not to allow questions in the Oval Office, as officials seem to prefer settings where he can do individual interviews - so the "world leader" meetings in the Oval Office don't get sidetracked onto the issue of the day.
It happened again on Wednesday as the President made his own statement, followed by a statement from the King of Jordan.
From the White House Pool report about that gathering in the Oval Office, it almost seemed like reporters were making a bit of a statement about their frustration.
"One pooler standing near POTUS asked a question loudly," the report said.
"POTUS declined to answer and laughed. "I'm sitting right here.""
To the outsider, this is stupid stuff to be writing about, the press just looking for something to complain about.
But to someone like me, this is interesting stuff. There is always a lot going on behind the scenes in the White House between the press staff and the reporters in the briefing room.
