Nico Pitney at the Huffington Post has been providing unparalleled coverage of the ongoing events in Iran. The White House invited him to yesterday's press conference. And that made Dana Milbank all grumpy.
Just read Dana Milbank's column in the Washington Post about yesterday's press conference. The condescension begins in the opening paragraph.
In his first daytime news conference yesterday, President Obama preempted "All My Children," "Days of Our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless." But the soap viewers shouldn't have been disappointed: The president had arranged some prepackaged entertainment for them.
Let the contempt drip:
But yesterday's daytime drama belonged primarily to Pitney, of the Huffington Post Web site. During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask preplanned questions. But here was Obama fielding a preplanned question asked by a planted questioner -- from the Huffington Post.
Why is Milbank so dismissive? His main complaint was that the White House had invited Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post and asked that he submit a question from one of his Iranian correspondents. Therefore, according to Milbank, this counted as a pre-arranged question -- a very big no-no.
The trouble here is that Milbank completely fails to acknowledge the fact that Nico Pitney has been scooping the WaPo day after day, minute by minute. By the time news of Iran hits the newspapers, it's pretty stale. And as for the cable channels, well, they try to slip it in to their regular infotainment, but in nice easy-to-digest doses.
Nico Pitney's blog has been tremendously informative, giving us information as soon as it reached him from individual Iranians. I'm sure the White House was reading the blog, because it drew from so many person-in-the-street sources. The intelligence services have their own sources, but not thousands of actual protestors in the midst of the action.
So it's likely Obama decided to give credit where credit was due by letting Pitney ask the second question of the press conference. It was gratitude and recognition for a job well done. Right?
As Milbank's concerned it was just another part of a scripted soap opera. Wow. Now that Froomkin's gone, the only thing on the menu at the Wapo cafeteria seems to be sour grapes.
UPDATE: Thanks for the recs!