Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Obama Online Presidency Miffs MSM

He could turn out to be a one-term president, according to New York Times White House reporters in a panel discussion this weekend moderated by their assistant managing editor who complained:

“When the current president was elected, one of the first things he did was sit down with the New York Times and a battery of reporters. This president has not sat down with our New York Times press corps in a very long time, as even Bush did.”

As uncharitable as it may be to connect the gloomy assessment of his administration with Obama's going AWOL from the newspaper of record, the fact remains that he is bypassing what Reagan's people used to call "media filters" with almost daily speeches, televised "media opportunities" and exclusive unedited TV network interviews.

Even worse, to MSM eyes, are the Obama team's constant communications with 13 million supporters by e-mail, a million recipients of text-messaging, 2 million members of the campaign's proprietary social network, and 5 million "friends" on more than 15 other social networking sites including Facebook.

The Times reporters who foresee doom for an Obama Administration that fails to stop the economic slide may be influenced, consciously or not, by the growing number of predictions that their paper in printed form, along with many others, may be facing extinction under the same circumstances--and in less than four years.

All kinds of Change are in the air.

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