Ken Berwitz

Hard though it may seem to imagine, the Obama administration has decided to go to war with the San Francisco Chronicle - one of his most reliably supportive newspapers (among a crowded field, admittedly) - and, more generally, with the overall White House pool reporter contingent.

To briefly summarize, the Chronicle's Carla Marinucci is part of the White House pool of reporters.  But, earlier this week, Ms. Marinucci enraged the administration by using her cell phone to take pictures of anti-Obama protesters outside the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, where the President was making a speech.

For this "offense", the White House threatened to banish Ms. Marinucci from the reporting pool.

Needless to say, the Chronicle strongly objected.  And it went public with the incident.

Now the administration is claiming it never made any such threat in the first place.  And the Chronicle is calling them liars.

Excerpted from a statement from the Chronicle's Phil Bronstein:

In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area.

Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib: 

Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.

 

The Chronicle's report is accurate.

 

If the White House has indeed decided not to ban our reporter, we would like an on-the-record notice that she will remain the San Francisco print pool reporter. 

I was on some of those calls and can confirm Ward's statement.

 

Messy ball now firmly in White House court.

Is the White House guilty of being thin-skinned, and lying about what really happened?  It sure looks that way. 

If this was meant to intimidate reporters into submission, it obviously was a miserable failure.

And for what?  Do these geniuses think that we don't know people are protesting President Obama?  Maybe someone over there should read his political approval numbers.

The Obama administration would be better served by leaving the pool reporters alone (why would you make enemies there), and trying harder to understand why those protesters were out there in the first place.