What a difference a day can make—at least if you’re Barack Obama.
The president, who increasingly is exhibiting a flair for talking out of both sides of his mouth, met last week for a fundraiser with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Wearing an "I'm With Mark" t-shirt to remind those assembled how hip and cool he is, Obama told a mostly youthful audience:
The main reason we wanted to do this is, 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.
The viewpoint certainly jibes with Obama’s own unprecedented reliance on multimedia, and especially social networking, to get out his campaign message in 2008.
So how does he explain the actions of his minions a day later, when they banished a reporter from covering future presidential visits to the Bay Area for using—of all things—a multimedia capture device? Talk about your audacity!
The reporter, Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle, was at another Obama fundraiser, this one at the St. Regis Hotel. When a group of protesters interrupted with a song whose lyrics taunted, “We paid our dues, where’s our change?” Marinucci recorded the event on her cell phone camera. The president, trying as usual to mask his displeasure at the protest (the impertinence!), failed as usual.
Once the video began to make the rounds on the internet, it was obvious someone would have to pay.
Phil Bronstein, the Chronicle’s editor at large, wrote in his blog at SFGate that the White House’s explanation for booting Marinucci from the ranks of approved reporters is that she is part of the “print pool.” She, thus, crossed a line.
But, as Bronstein notes,
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.
Bronstein further observes that "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." Bronstein editorializes, "Really? That's a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free."
Indeed, especially for a president "committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history."
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