Former WH Press Secretary Regrets Allowing Cameras

The press is beginning to realize that their antics in the White House press room do not play well on TV, and the former Clinton press secretary who first allowed televised briefings is regretting that decision:

Mike McCurry, who was President Bill Clinton's press secretary a decade ago, is kicking himself to this day for ever allowing the White House briefings to be televised live.

"It was a huge error on my part," Mr. McCurry recalled the other day after watching a relentless White House press corps badger Scott McClellan, the current White House press secretary, about a hunting accident in which Vice President Dick Cheney shot a friend, Harry M. Whittington, and delayed telling the news media about it. "It has turned into a theater of the absurd."

The live briefings, held almost daily, do serve a purpose for both sides. They give the White House an everyday entree into the news cycle and let officials speak directly to the public. And they give reporters the chance to hold officials accountable and on the record (and help reporters get time on camera).

By its nature, the relationship between the White House and the press has historically held an inherent tension. And many say it has been eroding since the Vietnam War and Watergate, when reporters had reason to distrust everything the White House said and made a scandalous "gate" out of every murky act.

But today, those on both sides say, the relationship has deteriorated further, exacerbated by the live briefings.

I personally believe that the President and Karl Rove secretly rejoice whenever the press acts up as it did in the Cheney shooting. The White House is not hurt at all by the diminished credibility of the press pool.

The press is also realizing that the cameras are not doing them much good, and though they like the celebrity that comes with the job, they're not so enthused about allowing America to see them at work:

Two caricatures of the White House press corps have emerged as the nation has watched the sausage-making in the briefing room and then seen it analyzed in the blogosphere. Commentators on the left say that the press is manipulated, and that it failed to challenge the administration enough after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the ramp-up to the Iraq war in March 2003. The right says the press is petty, irrelevant and politically biased against President Bush.

"We're damned if we do and damned if we don't," said Ken Herman, White House correspondent for Cox Newspapers.

"I don't like them seeing me do my job; I want them to see the end result," he said of the public's looking over his shoulder in the briefing room. "It's perfectly possible to be obnoxious and contentious in there and produce an objective print story, but the image is so overwhelmingly negative, and some of our TV brethren are very good at the in-your-face product."

Since when did "obnoxious and contentious" ever produce "fairness"? That's nonsense. The come off looking like immature, spoiled brats who need a nap and their binky, rather than the news professionals they claim to be. It they don't like they way they come off on TV, they have the power to fix that problem anytime they want. They can either choose to act civilized, or they can turn off the cameras. Their choice.