Devious puppet master forces media to cover canceled tours rather than poverty and suffering

Behold the devious puppet master, forcing Beltway insiders to write about cancelled White House tours instead of the impact of the sequester on food and housing programs nationwide. In a ridiculous four-page Politico whinefest on February 18, entitled Obama, the puppet master, Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei hammered the president and his staff for bypassing the White House press corps and speaking directly to local reporters:

Obama himself sees little upside to wide-ranging interviews with the beat reporters for the big newspapers ' hence, the stiffing of even The New York Times since 2010. The president's staff often finds Washington reporters whiny, needy and too enamored with trivial matters or their own self-importance....

Obama gives frequent interviews (an astonishing 674 in his first term, compared with 217 for President George W. Bush, according to statistics compiled by Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist at Towson University), but they are often with network anchors or local TV stations, and rarely with the reporters who cover the White House day to day....

They are also masters of scrutiny avoidance. The president has not granted an interview to print reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, POLITICO and others in years. These are the reporters who are often most likely to ask tough, unpredictable questions.

Yes, those namby pamby, lightweight local reporters and outlets simply won't ask the "tough, unpredictable questions" this country needs, or cover the big issues, like '. the impact of the sequester on White House tours:


Over 12,000 news hits cite WH tours, while under 1,000 cite cuts to housing assistance. (Housing cuts hit the poor: http://t.co/... )
' @AriMelber via web


Local reporters have reported on the actual human impact of the sequester more than the WH press corps. e.g. http://t.co/...
' @AriMelber via web

The White House staff thinks the Beltway press corps that covers the administration is "whiny, needy and too enamored with trivial matters or their own self-importance?" Say it ain't so!