Comments for The Crucifixion of Nico Pitney

The Crucifixion of Nico Pitney

2009-06-24T15:30:31Z

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration but the Huffington Post reporter is getting tweaked this morning for the question he posed to President Obama at yesterday's White House Press Conference. It was an odd moment because normally, of course, reporters raise their hands, the president calls on someone and they ask their question. In this case the president seemed to have Pitney in mind already.

]]> "Nico, I know you and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran," Obama said. "I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?"

Pitney then posed a question that he said had been posed by an Iranian citizen. The exchange can be seen here.

Did this amount to "choreography" or some ethical lapse? Please.

First, it's no more choreographed than the centuries-old tradition of calling on Helen Thomas first long after her then employer, United Press International, had become a mere shadow of its former self. The practice stopped when Thomas moved to Hearst to become a columnist. The president continues to live by the tradition of calling on the Associated Press first and everyone knows that the broadcast networks will all be called on as well as the other wire services, Bloomberg and Reuters. Major papers usually, but don't always, get called on too. That's a kind of staging, too.

What makes the Pitney-Obama exchange different is that the White House seems to have called Pitney and told him that they might call on him for an Iran question because of his yeoman's work aggregating Tweets and blogs from Iran. But since Pitney didn't tell the White House what question it was, I don't think there was any untoward coordination. I've known other reporters who have gotten subtle hints that they might be called on at a presidential press conference. So what?

I admit that if this had been Newsmax or Redstate chatting it up with Ari Fleischer before a news conference the mainstream media might be raising more of a stink. But I think the basic idea that the White House didn't know the question before hand, only that it might come from an Iranian citizen means that this was all above board. And certainly the idea of trying to reach out directly to Iranians was a reasonable one for the White House to pursue. I was in Damascus in 1994 when the White House tried to arrange for an American journalist writing for an Israeli publication to post a question at a joint press conference of Bill Clinton and then Syrian President Hafez AL Assad. The idea then as now was to promote direct contacts. The press conference never happened and so the question wasn't posed. I didn't think it was an ethical lapse then or now. Besides, the Iranian who posed the question via Pitney offered up one a lot smarter question than some of the eyerollers offered by other reporters like, did you speak out on Iran because of Lindsay Graham and John McCain (CBS News's Chip Reid) or (Fox News's Major Garrett) What took you so long?

Comment from John Thacker on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T16:10:25Z

Yes, I do think that it's true that most of the complaints are simply because it's not the mainstream media. President Obama, even back before taking office, had a list of whom he was going to call on and often told the reporters beforehand that they would be called upon.

The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day.

Comment from Abhinav on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T16:26:17Z

I found Milibank's article today on this really stupid. Anything that goes against the usual pecking order seems to ruffle feathers in the MSM, and then they wonder why they are going out of business.

Comment from mike barry on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T16:33:41Z

So the President's men have been following the blogs and thought the HuffPo would be an opportunity for them to get a message out. They used Pitney as the vehicle, so what? Obama didn't even have to give a newser, and then what would all the cry babies in the briefing room have?

Comment from AhYup on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T17:12:26Z

The degree of beltway narcissism has made them totally blind and clueless about anything but partisan games. The question asked in the particular style doesn't make the slightest bit of sense as partisan manipulation but that's all these people can't see anything but their own games anymore. They missed Iran from the beginning and even now a HuffoPo blogger outperforms them and it wouldn't surprise me if he's outperformed the CIA and all the other alphabet agencies as well.

So like I wrote to Andrew Sullivan (thanks for posting it Andrew) the president rather ostentatiously arranges to have this blogger ask him a question from the many Iranians he is in contact with. Doesn't the implication seem obvious to anyone thinking about Iran more than domestic politics? It seemed pretty damn obvious to me that Obama was tacitly signalling his support for what interested Americans with Internet connections have been doing all week and rubbing their noses in it.

What it tells me is that for all the hyperbole about supporting the resistance they are only interested themselves and their little elite media club. They make a big fuss over John McCain's meaningless and hysterical bombast but that crap is just self affirmation. They want to feel tough and they want to be involved but only if it doesn't go beyond talking about it.

Comment from rayrick on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T17:18:16Z

The thing that's most absurd about the criticism of this supposed "stagecraft", is that it was a really good question and one that Obama did not seem particularly comfortable answering. In fact, he basically dodged it. While reaffirming his concerns about the election process and emphasizing that the Iranian government, first and foremost, must be seen as legitimate by it's own people, he sidesteps the thorny issue of whether the US will at some point be forced to recognize/negotiate with the Ahmadinejad/Khamenei government if it ultimately succeeds in quashing the uprising. If you're going to choreograph a question, you'd think you'd make it one you'd have a better answer for than, "Um...We'll cross that bridge if we come to it..."

Comment from CT Voter on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T17:22:18Z

The question by Pitney was significantly more meaningful and relevant than the 25 part question about Obama's smoking habits. The fact that MSM apparently has its panties in a twist over an excellent question highlights, once again, how narcissistic and shallow it is.

Remember: this is the press corps that Jeff Gannon was part of.

Comment from Joanne Bamberger/PunditMom on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T17:42:54Z

No matter how well meaning all of this was, it's a VERY slippery slope. The Obama team inviting him AND asking him to ask that question is suspect, no matter how hard the question was. Pitney is doing great reporting, but what does this whole scenario say about what journalism is or is not

For me, this is journalism 101 -- and both HuffPo and the Obama White House failed.

Comment from eaglesfan on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T17:47:41Z

I just emailed to Andrew these largely ignored post-joke comments by Obama on June 19 at Radio & TV Correspondents Dinner:

"We're seeing that now as history is unfolding. In the sounds and images broadcast from Iran over the last week, we've seen professional and citizen journalists act as a voice for those who want to be heard, bearing witness to universal aspirations of democracy and freedom. Often at great risk, and sometimes with great sacrifice, they do it because the rest of us need to hear the stories that they tell. In recent years, we've seen the same courageous reporting in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and the Congo, and in every dangerous corner of the world. And everywhere there's a story that needs to be told."

Transcript of Obama at Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner, http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-obama-at-radio-and-tv-correspondents-dinner/.

It's amazing that these comments were made directly to the radio & TV correspondents and they hardly got a mention in all of the coverage of Obama's "refusal to meddle." I think it says a great deal about why Obama sought out Nico to get a question from an Iranian -- he's actually paying attention to what they're saying. Making note of that, however, apparently isn't a good story according to the MSM.

Comment from AhYup on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T18:03:19Z

"For me, this is journalism 101 -- and both HuffPo and the Obama White House failed."

Oh please, sorry you and the self absorbed beltway press failed and done so very badly.

Blogging as Pitney is doing is not reporting in the traditional sense at all nor should it be. He's disseminating information from a resistance movement and really is a part of what's going on. This is more international activism than reporting and the administration appears to endorse it. This is the war vs theocratic fascism and it now as it should be is being fought by normal Americans reaching out to communicate with people struggling for freedom on the other side of the world.

rayrick makes a very good point about the question and the answer. Certainly the answer was not fully satisfying but then in my humble opinion it is to early in this for him to have made a responsible decision about the answer.

But satisfying or not he took it and gave a better answer than the last president gave in all those press conferences he gave (yes that was sarcasm) not to mention better than anything Iranians ever get from there government.

The punditry and so called conservatives have really disgraced themselves. All that talk, loud obnoxious talk about supporting the resistance and when Obama goes and recognises the resistance via somebody who really is doing something they all bitch and moan because all they care about is themselves.

Comment from AhYup on 2009-06-24

2009-06-24T18:09:09Z

Thank you Eagles fan. I didn't see that myself and I suspect some would see me reading my own agenda into the Pitney thing.

But that quote from Obama last week supports my interpretation.

Comment from ChicagoJohn on 2009-06-30

2009-06-30T06:56:36Z

Matthew; you went to J-school at Columbia, so yeah, you know that this is an ethical lapse.

Its not acceptable for a reporter to take - from a president - a topic. Not unless they work for "Extra!", or People magazine.

If you're a real reporter, you don't accept suggestions from a spokesperson on what topic you should ask about. I can't see how this would be acceptable to any reporter... at least one who isn't waiting for a scripted swath of an answer.

You even tacitly stated that it was a lapse here:
"I admit that if this had been Newsmax or Redstate chatting it up with Ari Fleischer before a news conference the mainstream media might be raising more of a stink."

Yes. Because you don't choreograph press conferences with a president. At the very least, it gives goofy guys like myself the idea that you might not want to make him look bad by asking him about a topic that he's not ready to answer.