Repairing the Rift between the White House and Press Corps
To put it simply, the Obama White House and the White House Press Corps are having issues. Those issues range from the president leaving the White House without the press pool in tow to not making statements at most of his bilateral meetings during the Nuclear Security Summit.
On CNN's "Reliable Sources" two weeks ago, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz about his daily press briefings, "I sometimes joke that I know when somebody thinks they have a good question, because when I walk in they've already got their makeup on."
The comment and earlier incidents resulted in a mini-summit between Gibbs and select White House reporters.
On Tuesday's Washington Unplugged, Sharyl Attkisson discussed this with White House Correspondents' Association Board Member and Reuters White House Correspondent Caren Bohan, who explained what was brought up at the meeting with Gibbs.
"One of the issues that I think is important is we would like to see President Obama hold more press conferences," she said. "He's been a little more reluctant to hold news conferences or take questions from reporters at informal settings."
Another issue raised at the meeting was the use of "anonymous sources" by the press corps. Gibbs asked reporters to end their use of quoting anonymous sources.
"The problem is that we can't get the press corps to agree on a deal like that," Bohan said. "For everyone to agree that no one will use anonymous sources, it just wouldn't happen."
So, how does the Obama administration rate compared to past administrations? According to Bohan, who has covered the White House over the past seven years, "I would say like the prior administration, they very much liked to control the message. I think that's also true of the Clinton administration. They would try to control the message by going around the press corps by going to local media. This administration is making use of Twitter and blogs."
Bohan adds that while it is a quick remedy to bypass the traditional media, it only works to a certain point.
"There will always be a market for what independent journalists write, and I don't think there is much any administration can do to completely eliminate that," she said.
Watch Tuesday's Washington Unplugged above, also featuring Politico Senior Editor David Mark on the Goldman Sachs hearing on Capitol Hill and the national impact of Arizona's immigration law.
Correction: Bohan has covered the White House for the past seven years, not 20. She has reported for Reuters for 20 years but has covered other beats.
"Washington Unplugged," CBSNews.com's exclusive daily politics Webshow, appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.