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Government
White House blocks access to Obama events, news groups say
2013-11-23
[MCCLATCHYDC] The nation's largest news organizations lodged a complaint Thursday against the White House for imposing unprecedented limitations on photojournalists covering President Barack Obama, which they say have harmed the public's ability to monitor its own government.
Why doesn't the MSM just ask for official White House photos of the events? It would save everyone time and the coverage is going to be the same regardless from the credentialed wing of the Democratic Party...
The organizations accuse the White House of banning photojournalists from covering Obama at some events, and then later releasing its own photos and videos of the same events.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest defended the release of photos and videos, saying the practice helps Obama live up to his pledge of transparency by allowing the public to have greater access to the inner workings of the administration when it's not feasible for news media to be in the room.
"Journalists are routinely being denied the right to photograph or videotape the president while he is performing his official duties," according to a letter the organizations sent to the White House. "As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist's camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the executive branch of government."

Presidents often look for ways to get their own messages out. But media experts say Obama's administration has developed an aggressive strategy to use social media, including government-sponsored websites and blogs, as well as Twitter, Instagram and Flickr accounts, to circumvent the media's constitutional duty more than its predecessors have.

"You are only seeing what they want you to see," said Lucy Dalglish, the dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest defended the release of photos and videos, saying the practice helps Obama live up to his pledge of transparency by allowing the public to have greater access to the inner workings of the administration when it's not feasible for news media to be in the room.

"What we've done is we've taken advantage of new technology to give the American public even greater access to behind-the-scenes footage or photographs of the president doing his job," Earnest said. "To the American public, that's a clear win."

He said the news organizations' protests were just part of the natural tension between journalists and those they covered.

"The fact that there is a little bit of a disagreement between the press corps and the White House press office about how much access the press corps should have to the president is built into the system," he said at the daily White House news briefing. "If that tension didn't exist, then either you or we aren't doing our jobs."
Posted by:Fred

#12  "What we've done is we've taken advantage of new technology to give the American public even greater access to behind-the-scenes footage or photographs of the president doing his job,"

The Golf Channel is new technology?
Posted by: swksvolFF   2013-11-23 14:59  

#11  "What we've done is we've taken advantage of new technology to give the American public even greater access to behind-the-scenes footage or photographs of the president doing his job," Earnest said.

Evidently, a WH photographer was a bit overzealous carrying out Earnest's mandate...

Posted by: Au Auric   2013-11-23 14:17  

#10  "You are only seeing what they want you to see," said Lucy Dalglish, the dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

How is that different from ABC?
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2013-11-23 13:35  

#9  Stay after it JI, you're on the verge. Work on equalizing the light.

Posted by: Shipman   2013-11-23 13:18  

#8  JI, yours take time, effort, creativity, imagination.

Too many photographers have taken on the mindset of being tripods. Well dressed and snotty tripods, but tripods nonetheless. I'm afraid that the same thing that is happening with people not being able to retain phone numbers is happening with the mass recording of anything, that people are sacrificing the be here now for hours of stale video footage.

Going through that digital video, picking the frame where el pres has the best smile and wink combo, adjusting bright/contrast, hue, saturation to make the most pleasing effective picture is not photography in the sense they pass it off as, the happened to catch the moment they sell it as. Its really advanced 21st century poster agit prop.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2013-11-23 10:15  

#7  Actually I have noticed that since the Obamacare rollout fiasco, the exact same photos have been used over and over again for many different articles.

Also every single one of them appear to have been Photoshopped in some way or the other to enhance the main stream media's point of view.

The art of photography/photojournalism, today, is a lost art.

Most photographers today don't even try (or know how) to take quality images. They simply snap a bunch of snapshots, download the entire batch DIRECTLY from their cameras into a Photoshop application, and the Photoshop artists take over from there.

In a great many cases I doubt that the images we see posted on the MSM are any more real than the one I posted above.
Posted by: junkiron   2013-11-23 09:21  

#6   and start selling them to "donors" for $100k a pop.

And then setup a special fund (call it a communication enhancement fund - of taxpayer money of course) so that those on he's 'A' list can buy them.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2013-11-23 08:22  

#5  "God" doesn't give anything, (He's God, or thinks he is)
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2013-11-23 07:44  

#4  The next step is that the PoS (er...PotUS?) will claim rights to the photos and start selling them to "donors" for $100k a pop.
Posted by: AlanC   2013-11-23 07:43  

#3  I don't know why journalists don't use more of MY photos of Obama's events.

Heck in most cases I could even provide them with event photos before the event
even happens.

Posted by: junkiron   2013-11-23 01:51  

#2  There is a price to be paid for turning on us.
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-11-23 00:49  

#1  Why doesn't the MSM just ask for official White House photos of the events? It would save everyone time and the coverage is going to be the same regardless from the credentialed wing of the Democratic Party...

Credits
Posted by: Shipman   2013-11-23 00:33  

00:00