"You’re such a dick."
That’s what White House reporter Dana Milbank reportedly whispered to Huffington Post blogger Nico Pitney after their recent brutal exchange on Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources.
Nico Pitney has been one of the premier sources of breaking news and analysis on the Iranian election, and the White House invited him to the briefing room to ask a question last week. Which he did. And it was a damn good one.
But no sooner had the question escaped from Pitney's lips than the D.C. pundits erupted into unbridled fury over the White House's extension of an invitation to Nico Pitney.
The firestorm that erupted over the weekend flooded opinion pages and airwaves. Dana Milbank penned a snarky screed in the Washington Post, lashing out at the "stagecraft" of the "prearranged question" (nevermind that no question was ever arranged). Riding a tsunami of hyperbole so large that it could only be the byproduct of an ego shaken to its core, Milbank cried foul at the "planted reporter."
Even the normally even-headed Howard Fineman couldn’t avoid the fray, claiming, without a glimmer of irony or self-awareness, that "the Obamaneuver treated the press corps as a prop in a global propaganda war."
ButJoe Klein sums it up and hits the nail on the head:
[T]he Administration didn't ask to know what the question was in advance. And--here's the point--it was a great question, about whether the President would continue to seek negotiations with the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad regime. And Obama ducked the answer.
It seems to me that the real question here isn't why the Obama Administration solicited a question from the Iranians trying to get their story out via Pitney. The real question is why this has become such a big deal. A good question at a press conference is rare enough. A good question is a good question. Period.
Klein asks the perfect question: why was it such a big deal? Is there any doubt that, if the White House had invited an Iranian Twitter user to ask the president a question, the pundits would be gushing over the "groundbreaking" and "unprecedented" nature of the event? Is there any doubt that, had the White House invited an Iranian reporter to the event, the press wouldn’t have blinked an eye had the exact same question been asked?
By any measure of logic, the Pitney question was no more "staged" than the fact that the president calls on AP first at every conference out of tradition or the fact that FOX News will inevitably ask a right-wing question. But no, for some in the press, it was all part of the president’s Machiavellian plan to, gasp!, invite people into a briefing room to ask questions and be briefed on issues.
Why then did so many members of the press -- reporters who were championing new media just days ago, who were reading Twitter feeds for hours on end on live television, and who were lauding bloggers and Facebookers alike as spear tips of a new information revolution – suddenly recoil in horror when the White House dipped into the very same pool of talent that they themselves have been staring into for the last several weeks?
It’s easy to cast this dust-up as another chapter in the new media vs. traditional media battle royale. But the fight wasn’t just about a shootout at the proverbial Alamo of technology. The visceral reaction and righteous indignation that the president dare invite an issue-specific blogger into their midst reveals something much more.
We talk a lot about "crashing the gate" on this site, but if the Pitney incident stands for anything, it is that the gate leading into the Fourth Estate is the toughest to be crashed.
After all, we’ve seen scrappy candidates win marvelous victories. We’ve seen good progressive talent get recruited by think tanks and non-profits. Sure, the work has just begun on those fronts, but when it comes to breaking through the D.C. bubble and invading that inter sanctum where conventional wisdom is forged in the fire of everyday reporting, our strides are wholly lacking.
It’s not for lack of trying—there are countless of citizen journalists and opinion makers both on and off line that are worthy of sitting at the front row in that White House briefing room or that would excel behind a newsdesk on cable TV. But it’s the unreasonable demand placed on proving this worth that has kept this pool of talent lapping at the Fourth Estate gate.
If the media’s coverage of the Bush era illustrates anything, it is that merit means little in a world where failed pundits and passive reporters are rewarded with coveted slots in newspapers and news shows.
What, then, is required then to justify one’s status to the media elite?
What trials and tribulations must be passed before may sit in the White House briefing room?
How many cocktail parties must be suffered before one is granted the approving head nod from those without "temporary press passes"?
How many White House Correspondent Dinners must be attended and how many bellows of laughter must be uttered at jokes about WMD before one can sit in a press gallery without side glances wordlessly asking "what is she doing here"?
How many questions about Bo, about smoking, and about date night must be posited before one exhibits the sufficient level of fluffery necessary to join those hallowed halls?
The simple answer is that he royalty of the D.C. press will always look at bloggers like Nico Pitney with skepticism, regardless of their merit. Not because of the questions they ask when they get to the briefing room, but because of the unorthodox approach they take in getting there.
And the simple conclusion is that beyond the flash-in-the-pan and unjustified outrage at the Pitney question and the clenched jaws of the spurned is a press corps that is so thin-skinned and delicate in constitution that it is consequently and constantly irritated by that small, stubborn pit of ego aching for relevance which is tucked beneath the layers and layers of their "objective" analysis on this issue. Try as they might to shift tactics and methods and models, the traditional press just can’t find a way to get comfortable in this new media landscape, leading even the most "royal" members of the press lash out in the most coarse manner.
But "foul-mouthed" bloggers don't mind the elbow jabs or colorful language. Crashing this gate is rough...and it will be so worth it when it's finally done.