RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events ABC News:Press is Liberal

The (NY) Times, they are a changin'

Point is the anchors/journalist are far bigger sycophants and assholes then any news station. Especially when it comes to the left. Try and tell me otherwise, with my new YouTube powers I'll quickly prove you wrong.

With all due respect, the fact that you can pull a clip, or several, from YouTube proves nothing.

All that shows is that someone was able to take an isolated clip from a show, regardless of context, and post it to an internet provider. It doesn't address whether the clip is representative of the show, or the network. It doesn't address whether the clips posted to YouTube are a fair sampling of the entire network's output.

It's, at best, anecdotal evidence, and certainly doesn't compare to the studies, such as those cited above, that were actually carried out in a more scientific method which do, in fact, tend to show an overall leftward tilt to the US media.

So what are you saying? That you know your sources are inaccurate, or potentially inaccurate, but you use them anyway because you think someone else is doing the same thing?

Furthermore, your comparison isn't really valid. I pointed out how a YouTube clip, even if accurate, is not necessarily a representative sampling for the purposes of making the kind of determination you want to make. You didn't address that.

The bottom line is that you wanted to use an invalid methodology to prove a point.

you dont think the honeymoon is over?

Not at the Associated Press. According to an editorial in the Wall St Journal:

• After spending the Bush years as a voice of opposition, American journalists have by and large turned on a dime and become cheerleaders for the man in power.
  
  A case in point is the Associated Press, perhaps the nation's premier "straight news" outfit. During the Bush years, the AP introduced a new reportorial idiom called "accountability journalism," whose goal is "to report whether government officials are doing the job for which they were elected and keeping the promises they make." Turns out they weren't.
  
  But the AP's new idiom, which we hereby name "pliability journalism," aims to show that everything is completely different from the bad old days of a week ago and before.

The whole editorial is rather long but the upshot is that the Associated Press is editorializing in its various "news" stories about how Obama "Breaks From Bush, Avoids Divisive Stands," creates "an opening for improved relations after eight combative years under President George W. Bush" and even that "Obama's comfortable demeanor at the table...bodes well for the nation's food policy. While former President George W. Bush rarely visited restaurants and didn't often talk about what he ate, Obama dines out frequently and enjoys exploring different foods."

On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care -- a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm!

Highlights on the agenda:

ABCNEWS anchor Charlie Gibson will deliver WORLD NEWS from the Blue Room of the White House.

The network plans a primetime special -- 'Prescription for America' -- originating from the East Room, exclude opposing voices on the debate.

The Director of Communications at the White House Office of Health Reform is Linda Douglass, who worked as a reporter for ABC News from 1998-2006.

Late Monday night, Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay fired off a complaint to the head of ABCNEWS:

Dear Mr. Westin:

As the national debate on health care reform intensifies, I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC's astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24, 2009. Next Wednesday, ABC News will air a primetime health care reform �town hall� at the White House with President Barack Obama. In addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC�s web news �will all feature special programming on the president�s health care agenda.� This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president�s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.

Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party's views to those of the President's to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected. I believe that the President should have the ability to speak directly to the America people. However, I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party's opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.

In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.

Respectfully,
Ken McKay
Republican National Committee
Chief of Staff

MORE

ABCNEWS Senior Vice President Kerry Smith on Tuesday responded to the RNC complaint, saying it contained 'false premises':

"ABCNEWS prides itself on covering all sides of important issues and asking direct questions of all newsmakers -- of all political persuasions -- even when others have taken a more partisan approach and even in the face of criticism from extremes on both ends of the political spectrum. ABCNEWS is looking for the most thoughtful and diverse voices on this issue.

"ABCNEWS alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president. Like any programs we broadcast, ABC News will have complete editorial control. To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience."

Goebbels would be proud.

Not really. Without firing a shot, we have a president who, for all intents and purposes, has a "free press" that acts as a branch of his administration.

Even if you accept ABC's "spin" of the event, you still have a major network providing, in essence, a free block of airtime and refusing to air the opposing viewpoint (contrast this with, for example, the fact that networks used to air the opposition response to major presidential speeches such as the state of the union).

President Barack Obama told the American Medical Association yesterday that he believes single-payer health care systems have worked "pretty well" in some countries, but no major U.S. newspaper available in the Nexis database reported the president's comment in their news stories about the speech.

However, three of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers—the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times—did publish quotes from the president’s speech that artfully took language from both immediately before and after the president’s statement that single-payer systems work.

"I’ll be honest," Obama said in his speech to the AMA, "there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well."

A search of the the terms "Obama," "single-payer," and "pretty well" in the "Major Newspapers" file of Nexis turned up no hits as of 3:00 PM on Tuesday, June 16.

The full context of the president’s comment about the efficacy of single-payer health-care plans is available in the official transcript of the speech posted on the White House website.

One paragraph of the White House transcript reads as follows:

“Let me also say that—let me also address a illegitimate concern that’s being put forward by those who are claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan Horse for a single-payer system. I’ll be honest; there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well. But I believe—and I’ve taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief—that it’s important for our efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States. So when you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They’re not telling the truth.”

The president’s statement that “I’ll be honest; there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well” did appear in transcripts of the speech available on Nexis database, but not in articles in major newspapers. For example, it was transcribed in a CNN newscast that carried the president's speech live, and also on MSNBC's "The Ed Show" which used that portion of the president's speech as a soundbite.

But in the stories about the speech in the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times, words from both before and after the president’s statement about a single-payer system working pretty well appeared, while the statement itself did not. (These stories were also searchable and available on the Nexis "Major Newspapers" database.)

The Post reported on Obama’s speech to the AMA in a page 2 story. The story quoted the passage in the speech that included Obama’s claim that single-payer systems have worked well in some countries, but excised the sentence where he said it, using ellipses to mark its removal.

The relevant paragraph of the Post story reads as follows:

“In his speech, Obama said, ‘Let me also address an illegitimate concern that’s being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system. … When you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They’re not telling the truth.”

The New York Times reported on Obama’s speech to the AMA in a front page story. The story quoted broken phrases taken from before and after Obama’s claim that single-payer health care systems have worked well. But the story did not report what Obama said about single-payer systems working.

The relevant paragraph of the Times story reads as follows:

“‘The public option is not your enemy,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘It is your friend, I believe.’ Saying it would ‘keep insurance companies honest,’ the president dismissed as ‘illegitimate’ the claims of critics that a public insurance option amounts to ‘Trojan horse for a single-payer system’ run by the government.”

The Los Angeles Times reported on Obama’s speech to the AMA in a page 14 story.

The Times quoted from the same passage in the speech in which Obama expressed his view that single-payer health care systems have worked in some countries, but expunged the sentence in which he actually said it.

The relevant paragraph of the Times’s story reads as follows:

“‘Let me also address an illegitimate concern that’s being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system,’ Obama said. ‘But I believe, and I’ve taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief, that it’s important for our reform efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States.”

Here the Los Angeles Times broke up Obama’s actual quotation immediately before he said “I’ll be honest; there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well” and resumed the quotation immediately after he had said these words.

Apparently, the editors of the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times did not think their readers would be interested in knowing that President Obama believes “there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well.”

It should come as little surprise that the once venerable ABC News has announced it would broadcast an upcoming edition of its “World News” from the White House’s Blue Room, followed by a national town hall meeting on healthcare held in the East Room and presided over by President Barack Obama.

It’s a ratings stunt, easily explained by the fact that the network needs them so badly. Tuesday’s Nielsen ratings – which the network disputes – show that ABC’s evening news broadcast is attracting its smallest audience in decades.

More than that, however, it’s politics in the media at its worst. By turning the network over to Obama to pitch the American people on his healthcare reform plan, ABC has joined the lobbying arm of the White House and the Democratic Party. The presentation that will be made to the American people will not be, to borrow a phrase, “fair and balanced.” Instead, it will include no viewpoint other than Obama’s, despite ABC’s promise that the network – and the network “alone will select those who will be in the audience asking questions of the president,” said ABC News Senior Vice President Kerry Smith.

That the network has chosen to throw in with the president on healthcare reform is little surprise. The director of communications at the White House Office of Health Reform is former ABC News reporter Linda Douglass, who left the network to join Obama’s campaign. And it doesn’t take too much creativity to imagine that she probably helped broker a deal between her new boss and her old.

Leaving that aside, however, the Republican and conservative response to the announced programming was, as is typical, to whine that they were not being included. Begging for scraps from the monarch’s table is the wrong strategy.

The right strategy is to come up with ideas of their own, like buying television ads that would appear throughout the day laying out the case for the patient-based approach to healthcare reform and why it is superior to the government-run approach. Of course this would depend on ABC’s willingness to put the ads on the air, something it told the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights it would not do Wednesday afternoon after it asked to buy time just before the town meeting went on the air.

The right strategy has the proponents of the patient-centered approach to healthcare committing to holding a televised town meeting of their own, where attendance is not governed by the need to be cleared into the White House by the Secret Service.

It’s all well and good to point out that ABC Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos is a former Clinton White House aide who helped craft major policy initiatives like HillaryCare. And that “World News” anchor Charlie Gibson helped torpedo Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential election by asking her questions he himself could not answer and whose terms he could not define; but neither fact, while true, helps define the positions in the debate over healthcare reform.

The important thing is to be part of the debate, not whine about being excluded.

As indignation turned to outrage Thursday among critics of an ABC News prime-time special on President Obama's health care policy, The Washington Times has learned that ABC employees gave 80 times as much money to Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign for president than to his rival's.

According to an analysis of campaign donations by the Center for Responsive Politics, conducted at The Times' request, ABC employees in several divisions donated $124,421 to the Obama campaign, compared with $1,550 to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain.

The 60-minute ABC program, to air live from the White House on Wednesday, is sparking hardball politics in other ways. Grass-roots boycotts, Republican outcry and a study citing media bias are all part of the mix.

A study released Thursday by the Business & Media Institute (BMI) found that since Inauguration Day, ABC has aired news stories with positive reviews of Mr. Obama's health care policy 55 times, compared with 18 times when the network highlighted negative reviews.

Citing Census Bureau figures, the BMI analyses also accused ABC of "exaggerating the breadth of the uninsured problem," saying the network's claim that up to 50 million Americans are uninsured is false.

"ABC is in bed with their source, so to speak. ABC is supposed to be a news organization, not a producer of infomercials for national health care. And I wonder what they would have done if the Bush administration had asked for positive programming to support the war on terror or Social Security initiatives," said Dan Gainor, BMI vice president of business and culture.

Longtime Democratic strategist Tad Devine, however, said he detected the vast right-wing conspiracy of the last Democratic administration, and warned Republicans that complaining could backfire.

"It's the same old, same old from Republicans. People who run political parties have a responsibility to get their side of the story out, and they're attacking ABC to do that. ABC is the vehicle," said Mr. Devine, whose Democratic roots go back to the presidential ticket of Jimmy Carter and Walter F. Mondale.

"Republicans think they must undercut news organizations who give President Obama favorable coverage - or they will lose elections. They're going to go after anyone who gives Obama a showcase," Mr. Devine said. "But it could backfire. If the GOP keeps this up, everyone will tune into that ABC special on Wednesday."

An informal online poll at the New York Daily News on Thursday found that 75 percent of the respondents did not "trust" ABC to provide even-handed coverage. And conservative bloggers have been intensely critical of ABC in recent days.

"I'm not watching ABC entertainment, and I'm not watching their news programming either," said New York-based Karen Dougherty, who writes LonelyConservative.com, one of many blogs issuing a call for boycotts of ABC and its advertisers.

The broadcast, they say, is tantamount to an infomercial for the administration, made worse by the fact that ABC also will broadcast "World News Tonight" from the White House on Wednesday.

"It's not enough to say that ABC is exercising terrible journalistic judgment. The American public has to let ABC know that these decisions matter. As a believer in the marketplace, I think that an advertiser boycott is the way to deal with this unseemly display of media partisanship. After all, every American has a voice in the marketplace," said Sunny Berman of Bookwormroom.com, another conservative blog based in California.

An ABC executive responded to criticisms with the following:

"We welcome feedback from an audience in whatever form it might take. The top and bottom line is that we intend to produce a fair, probing and thoughtful discussion about a vitally important issue," said Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News communications.

The Republican National Committee disagrees.

Denied a chance to question Mr. Obama on his policy or buy advertising time on the program, Republicans said ABC denied them equal time for the town-hall-style event, accusing the network of turning over "its entire programming over to President Obama and his big-government agenda," RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele said in the organization's second public letter to the network in 48 hours.

ABC's Mr. Schneider called the Steele letter "a little sad. But that's how it all goes down. First you leak a letter from the RNC chief of staff to the press - all based on false premises - then the chairman writes something and riles everybody up. Then you ask for money. That's politics 101."

It may seem unseemly, given the apparent bloodshed in Iran today, to dwell on fallout among the media and bloggers about the Obama administration’s selective process for taking questions at a presidential news conference.

But within the bubble of the Beltway, and along the sprawling information dashboards on the Web, a tangential issue to news coverage of the Iranian situation has been stirring a lot of discussion, stemming from the circumstances surrounding President Obama’s decision at yesterday’s news conference to call on Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post.

As background for those not following this media-centric debate, Mr. Pitney has been live-blogging the fallout from the Iranian elections, sifting through Twitter feeds and other available observations and reports for news about the situation for several days. As our own staff knows at The Times, this has been an arduous task, partly because some reality is ungettable, some reports are questionable and others are downright fictitious. But in a censored-world like that in Iran, the Internet, with all its access through sometimes circuitous routes, has empowered citizens on the ground and offered new, inventive avenues for getting information out to the world.

The latter touch-base seems to have been the motivation for the Obama communications staff to select Mr. Pitney as someone who could offer up a question solicited from Iranians to pose to President Obama on Tuesday. As reporter heads swiveled in the Brady briefing room, Mr. Obama called out to Mr. Pitney and asked: “I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet,” the president said. “Do you have a question?”

“That’s right,” Mr. Pitney answered, standing along the sidelines, with access through a temporary White House pass. “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.”

But this was not a spontaneous exchange. Although Mr. Pitney and the administration have asserted in the intervening hours that neither knew the question to be posed — which means, in effect, the president’s response couldn’t have been rehearsed — Mr. Pitney was alerted by the administration that he might be called upon the night before.

So the perhaps noble mission of the Obama administration to address a genuine Iranian has gone awry — for reasons we’ll now explore through several accounts and assessments by White House correspondents and netroots activists who are feuding online over the news conference Q&A process and this particular example of an extremely selective — and calculated — decision. (And by the way, Mr. Obama really didn’t answer the posed question.)

How does the Obama administration choose which reporters to call on during a live presidential news conference> And are the rules — or at least the traditions — changing? It’s quite fascinating, actually, and even a bit amusing at this juncture, given the takes of various high-profile players, who have been engaged in a schoolyard game of nyah-nyah. We’ll get to that soon.

At today’s White House briefing, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was hammered by the White House press corps in the aftermath. He insisted that Mr. Pitney wasn’t a “planted questioner”, despite that fact that the HuffPo blogger had gotten a rare heads-up the night before that he might be called upon.

That’s the core issue, which has gotten lost in the gaming and bashing of an elite White House press corps, and i criticism of Mr. Pitney’s role, although we wouldn’t go so far as Matt Cooper has done at The Atlantic.com to call it the “crucifixion” of Nico Pitney.

My colleague, Jeff Zeleny, who was at the briefing today as well as at yesterday’s news conference, told me when I asked about the kind of night-before heads-up from the administration like that afforded Mr. Pitney: “That never happens. I’ve never been notified in advance of a question. In some cases – like when the Detroit News was asked at the prime-time one – she got like 10 minutes heads up.”

Early on, Mark Knoller of CBS News, who chronicles all big and small data about White House happenings, sent out his own alarm at the departure from routine through his Twitter feed, and then a post at his employer’s site, titled: “Obama to HuffPo Blogger: Tee One Up for Me.”

At the briefing today, from the transcript:

Q: Is this going to become a regular feature of President Obama’s news conferences, that you all are going to bring people in here that you select to ask questions?

Mr. Gibbs: Well, let’s understand. Let’s be clear, Peter. I think you understand this. So, but I’ll repeat it for your benefit.

There was no guarantee that a question — the questioner would be picked. There was no idea of what the exact question would be. I’ll let you down easily. A number of questions that we went through in prep you all asked. Iran dominated the news conference not surprisingly.

But Peter, I think it was important, and the president thought it was important, to take a question using the very same methods again that many of you all are using, to report information on the ground. I don’t have — I won’t make any apologies for that.

The “Peter” asking the questions was Peter Maier from CBS radio. Through persistent questioning at the briefing, Mr. Gibbs insisted the question wasn’t planted. And when someone posited that this picking and planting was akin to what occurred during the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 primary cycle, with planted questioners at her town-hall sessions, Mr. Gibbs went into a “no, no, no, no” rebuttal.

For his part, Mr. Pitney has taken to the airwaves all over the place today. From a C-Span interview to CNN this afternoon, he has asserted that the administration had no clue what question he would ask.

His ultimate employer, Arianna Huffington, posted a bit of a defensive defense about coverage of Mr. Pitney’s cameo at the news conference. Her headline kind of captures a bit of the angst and the back-and-forth: “Media Playground: Obama Calls on HuffPost, Michael Calderone Pouts, Ben Smith Calls Us Names, Dana Milbank Gets His Facts All Wrong.”

Mr. Milbank offered a sendup in his sketch at The Washington Post: “The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world — Iran included — that the American press isn’t as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn’t so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, “The Obama Show.” Missed yesterday’s show? Don’t worry: On Wednesday, ABC News will be broadcasting “Good Morning America” from the South Lawn (guest stars: the president and first lady), “World News Tonight” from the Blue Room, and a prime-time feature with Obama from the East Room. ”

Along the Interwebs, netroots activists are heralding Mr. Pitney’s role as yet another example of breaking through that tired old MSM elitist routine. They constantly deride what they consider the clubby atmosphere inside the briefing rooms at a presidential news conference, where citizens’ questions seem to them to be excluded. (Never mind that many of the questions asked reflect the public’s pressing issues of the day, like health care reform that did indeed command serious attention from the president yesterday.)

At The Nation, Ari Melber, tried to make the Pitney issue a milestone for citizen-journalists given access to that sacrosanct place amid the White House press corps.

The problem is not just that Mr. Pitney, for just one day, was afforded a cherished seat in the room or given an airing for his question. And no one is diminishing his work that has drawn accolades for his devoted attention to an issue. Rather, the criticism is that he was cherry-picked, with a call-upon hours and hours beforehand, and handed a status that no one among the so-called elite of the press corps receives on any given day.

While that may indeed be a thorn in the feet of the corps who toil daily, the perception of a favored one who got exceptionally advance notice may send signals — far and wide — as to what lengths the administration will go to stage and control the message the president wants to send.

That is what has gotten lost in all the old vs. new media antagonisms. It’s not about Mr. Pitney’s work or for that matter, the question he asked. It’s about how the administration finagled the position in which he became an actor for the president’s agenda.

In his first daytime news conference yesterday, President Obama preempted "All My Children," "Days of Our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless." But the soap viewers shouldn't have been disappointed: The president had arranged some prepackaged entertainment for them.

After the obligatory first question from the Associated Press, Obama treated the overflowing White House briefing room to a surprise. "I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post," he announced.

Obama knew this because White House aides had called Pitney the day before to invite him, and they had escorted him into the room. They told him the president was likely to call on him, with the understanding that he would ask a question about Iran that had been submitted online by an Iranian. "I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet," Obama went on. "Do you have a question?"

Pitney recognized his prompt. "That's right," he said, standing in the aisle and wearing a temporary White House press pass. "I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian."

Pitney asked his arranged question. Reporters looked at one another in amazement at the stagecraft they were witnessing. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel grinned at the surprised TV correspondents in the first row.

The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world -- Iran included -- that the American press isn't as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn't so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, "The Obama Show." Missed yesterday's show? Don't worry: On Wednesday, ABC News will be broadcasting "Good Morning America" from the South Lawn (guest stars: the president and first lady), "World News Tonight" from the Blue Room, and a prime-time feature with Obama from the East Room.

"The Obama Show" was the hottest ticket in town yesterday. Forty-five minutes before the start, there were no fewer than 107 people crammed into the narrow aisles, in addition to those in the room's 42 seats. Japanese and Italian could be heard coming from the tangle of elbows, cameras and compressed bodies: "You've got to move! . . . Oh, God, don't step on my foot!" Some had come just for a glimpse of celebrity. And they wanted to know all about him. "As a former smoker, I understand the frustration and the fear that comes with quitting," McClatchy News's Margaret Talev empathized with the president before asking him how much he smokes.

Obama indulged the question from the studio audience. "I would say that I am 95 percent cured. But there are times where I mess up," he confessed. "Like folks who go to AA, you know, once you've gone down this path, then, you know, it's something you continually struggle with."

This is Barack Obama, and these are the Days of Our Lives.

As if to compensate for the prepackaged Huffington Post question, Obama went quickly to Fox News for a predictably hostile question from Major Garrett. "In your opening remarks, sir, you said about Iran that you were appalled and outraged," Garrett said. "What took you so long?

"I don't think that's accurate," Obama volleyed testily, calling his toughening statements on Iran "entirely consistent."

The host of "The Obama Show" dispatched with similar ease a challenge from CBS's Chip Reid, asking whether his hardening line on Iran was inspired by John McCain. "What do you think?" Obama replied with a big grin. That brought the house down. And the studio audience laughed again when ABC's Jake Tapper tried to get Obama to answer another reporter's question that he had dodged. "Are you the ombudsman for the White House press corps?" the president cracked.

The laughter had barely subsided when the host made another joke about Tapper's reference to Obama's "Spock-like language about the logic of the health-care plan."

"The reference to Spock, is that a crack on my ears?" the president asked.

But yesterday's daytime drama belonged primarily to Pitney, of the Huffington Post Web site. During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask preplanned questions. But here was Obama fielding a preplanned question asked by a planted questioner -- from the Huffington Post.

Pitney said the White House, though not aware of the question's wording, asked him to come up with a question about Iran proposed by an Iranian. And, as it turned out, he was not the only prearranged questioner at yesterday's show. Later, Obama passed over the usual suspects to call on Macarena Vidal of the Spanish-language EFE news agency. The White House called Vidal in advance to see whether she was coming and arranged for her to sit in a seat usually assigned to a financial trade publication. She asked about Chile and Colombia.

A couple of more questions and Obama called it a day. "Mr. President!" yelled Mike Allen of Politico. "May I ask about Afghanistan? No questions about Iraq or Afghanistan?"

Sorry: Those weren't prearranged.

Sorry I didn't get to this until two days later, but I figured someone else would have written about this by now. Since no one did, for those of you that are curious, Obama's super special, ultra spectacular healthcare infomercial was a dud in the ratings last Wednesday night.

ABC's Barackspactacular Healthcare Extravaganza (I think that was the official name of the show, wasn't it?) went up against the NBC premiere of "The Philanthropist," widely panned as disappointing, and a repeat of "CSI: NY" on CBS, widely seen as already once widely seen. Unfortunately for ABC, its prop"O"ganda special got a dismal 1.2 rating to the 2.0 and 1.8 ratings respectively for the entertainment competition.

Apparently the TV show where he's president but plays a doctor on TV didn't go over well. The "Super-dooper, Obamalicious, Doctor Spock medicine woman show" was only able to cajole 4.703 million viewers into watching while NBC picked up 7.414 and CBS got 7.393 in the ten O'Clock hour. Remembering that we have 300 million citizens and healthcare is supposed to be the biggest emergency in history, well, that is a paltry number of viewers that Doc Barack got.

Earlier in the day, during the 8PM hour, ABC itself got 7.715 million viewers for "I'm a Celebrity... Get me Out of Here!" Sadly, ABC's 10PM sequel show guest starring the president, "I'm a Sellout... Get me Some Knee Pads," wasn't so well received.

Imagine: nearly double the amount of people that watched the healthcare special would rather have watched a repeat of "CSI:NY."

Ouch. I think OJ got more viewers for his slow motion police chase in the White Bronco.

Meanwhile, that same hour, the Cable newsers seem to have kept their regular audiences:

10 PM P2+ (25-54) (35-64) On the Record with Greta—1,655,000 viewers (472,000) (740,000) Anderson Cooper 360—1,016,000 viewers (271,000) (421,000) Countdown with K. Olbermann—749,000 viewers (275,000) (364,000) Nancy Grace –587,000 viewers (231,000) (324,000)

These numbers are not appreciably different than normal, really. One might think that people so into the news that they regularly watch any particular cable news show would switch over to see "President McDreamy: MD," but it doesn't look like too many loyal cable watchers were much interested.

But, not to worry, folks. ABC won't let anything as silly as ratings or disinterest from its viewers deter it from giving The One as much air time as he desires. I am pretty sure that Obama is working up a nice ventriloquist act with a dummy that looks just like Joe Biden for next week's episode. And Michelle and the girls have a great dance number they are working up. I hear Rahm Emanuel has a flashy baton and tap dance routine he used to do in college to show us, as well -- though friends are trying to get him to ditch the sequined leotards.

Sadly, I hear through the grapevine that Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had his stand up routine axed from the show. Apparently Obama said that Gibbs gets enough TV time doing his standup elsewhere and cut the poor guy. No respect, ya know? Tattlers also tell us that Nancy Pelosi was told that her gothic horror retrospective was not going to fly. Even ABC has some limits.

Anyway, who needs ratings when we have all of this going for us? I for one will be glued to my TV set for the next episode of "ABC's Sellout Theater" starring Barack Obama as George Clooney.

**I make no claim that my sources for upcoming Barackspactaculars are accurate.**

A time-honored joke in America's newsrooms involves the reporter who has the ideal quote to put in his story. It's perfectly paced. It's punchy. It's the one-sentence statement that says it all.

His only problem is that no one he has talked to has said it.

So, the joke goes, the reporter calls a source and in the course of the conversation says, "So, would you say, as good a man as Mr. Jones is, he just isn't the woman for the job?"

And when the person at the other end of the line says, "Yes, I would," the reporter says, "Great. Then go ahead and say that -- exactly that."

I can't say I've ever heard the joke told the other way, with the interviewee putting words in the reporter's mouth, because most of the notebook-toting watchdogs I've known would find it insulting rather than funny.

Why, that would be like the White House calling a friendly media type and suggesting that he ask a certain question at the next day's presidential press conference.

Oh, wait. That happened this week.

The second question of President Barack Obama's Tuesday press conference involved just such choreography.

"I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post," Obama said as he scanned the room.

He could have said, "I know that, because we made darned sure he was going to be here," but he didn't, the old smoothie.

What Obama did go on to say to Pitney was this: "Nico, I know that you and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?"

He could have said, "Do you have the question? The one we told you this morning to be ready to ask? Because I'm just itching to answer it." That would have put Pitney in an awkward position, though, so Obama didn't go into detail.

Pitney, play-acting right along, did his part, beginning, "I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian."

He could have said, "I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian, because that's what you asked me to do and because I really, really want you to like me." But he had more sense than that.

The question -- not that it matters terribly -- was this: "Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of the -- of what the demonstrators there are working towards?"

Obama could have said, "Yes, we're going to accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and yes, that's a betrayal of the demonstrators," because that's what will prove to be the truth.

Since, with this administration, there's never any rush to get to the truth, he blathered on instead about how it's up to the Iranian people to decide who will be their leaders -- which will be news to the mullahs who actually pick the leaders -- and about how it's not too late for the Iranian government to play nice.

So that's that. Everyone feel better?

No.

The oddities that attended Pitney's question -- that it was the second one of the news conference, that it came from a media fringe player, that just before the event began Pitney was ushered into a far more prominent place in the room than his status deserved, that the exchange with Obama so clearly smacked of a setup -- did not go unnoticed.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote: "Reporters looked at one another in amazement at the stagecraft they were witnessing. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel grinned at the surprised TV correspondents in the first row."

Stagecraft.

Sunday, we get a New York Times piece suggesting that some trumped up "Obama effect" sparked the Iranian protests. Tuesday, we get the Huffington Post eagerly doing the White House's bidding. Wednesday, we get ABC's Obamacare infomercial, broadcast from the East Room.

There's an Obama effect, all right. But it's not playing out in Iran. It's right here, among America's lovesick media, and it may actually be intensifying.

...I don't want a mod that will copy and paste.