Of all the stories to come out of President Obama’s press conference Tuesday afternoon, the tale of Nico Pitney has proved to be one of the most controversial.
Presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained that the White House invited Pitney, national editor of online news powerhouse The Huffington Post, to the conference to ask a question inspired by an Iranian resident who had been communicating with the Web site.
Pitney was the second question taken by President Obama at the conference, who actually set Pitney’s question up for him.
“Nico, I know you, and all across the Internet, have been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran,” Obama said. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating from the Internet. Do you have a question?”
News outlets from such as FOX News and CBS have criticized this apparent staging in the press conference, but as The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein pointed out in a blog posted Wednesday:
“The outrage seems to rely on a weird respect for the White House press conference – a vision of them as some genuine vehicle of accountability where an aggressive and independent press corps can interrogate the president,” Klein wrote.
Gibbs insisted that Pitney’s question was meant to serve as a voice for the Iranian people that President Obama could answer directly.
so it was a scripted question, who cares! It might have made some people feel good that the subject was brought up and thats what the president wanted to do. I say bravo on the performance
As a journalist, I do have a problem with it. It's just like what happen with President Bush a few years back and I didn't agree with that either.
If the president wants to address an issue, he doesn't need a reporter to bring it up.
Nico Pitney should have been up from during the press conference and said that the White House wanted him to ask that question.
This goes into journalistic integrity and ethics. You have to be and appear to be objective or you will lose your readers’ trust. And without any credibility, then a journalist can find him- or herself out of work.
