President Obamas first week; Open Government and bipartisanship
Three days into his term and President Obama has shown his desire to stretch across party lines to accomplish his goals. Well, no. Not really. He also seems bound and determined to alienate and aggravate the press corps.
First case. The AP mentioned in an off handed way that President Obama has shut photographers out of the Oval Office. It has been tradition to allow photographers access to the Presidents first day in office. President Obamas apparent insecurities did not permit this. Of course the press didn’t stress the censuring of photographers. The actual story was three news agencies; The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse refused to carry the official photos doled out to them by the White House referring to them as “visual press releases”.
“Using these photos would be a major break with established precedent and would compromise the long-held tradition of independent photo coverage of the president and the White House by the major news agencies,” said Courtney Dolan, spokeswoman for Thomson Reuters.
Michael Oreskes, managing editor for U.S. news at the AP stated, “We are hopeful of negotiating an amicable solution,”
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