Nico, Nico, Nico…

Michelle Malkin:

I noted on Twitter and in my live-blog of Obama’s press conference that the president called on/coached HuffPo’s Nico Pitney in an obvious, pre-planned question on Iranians communicating through social media and the Internet.

The question itself was unobjectionable and Obama’s response was so bland and rambling I don’t remember it.

But what was noteworthy was Obama’s embarrassingly obvious and patronizing coordination of the question. I have no love for the HuffPo people (and vice versa), but really, was such schoolmarm-ish hand-holding by the White House necessary?

Several pieces from Politico. Ben Smith:

The high-profile the administration is giving the left-leaning outlet is a nice case of symbiosis, not entirely unlike the Bush Administration’s close ties to Fox, though the president’s signal that he’d been briefed on the question in advance was particularly unusual.

Michael Calderone

Reporters typically don’t coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences, so it seemed odd that Obama might have an idea what the question would be. Also, it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuters.

CBS Radio’s Mark Knoller, a veteran White House correspondent, said over Twitter it was “very unusual that Obama called on Huffington Post second, appearing to know the issue the reporter would ask about.”

According to POLITICO’s Carol Lee, The Huffington Post reporter was brought out of lower press by deputy press secretary Josh Earnest and placed just inside the barricade for reporters a few minutes before the start of the press conference.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, here and here.

Jason Zengerle in TNR on Smith’s piece:

Not only does Ben compare Obama’s relationship with HuffPo to Bush’s relationship with Fox, he makes the Obama-HuffPo relationship seem even more egregious! But I don’t see how. The only briefing in advance Obama had presumably received on Pitney’s question was that it would be from an Iranian (a fact that the White House press office would have known from reading Pitney’s blog, since he put out a request for questions*). What’s more, the question from an Iranian Pitney chose to ask was a pretty challenging one:

“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?”

It elicited what I thought was Obama’s weakest and most unsatisfying answer of the presser. I can’t think of any time a question from a Fox reporter produced something like that from Bush.

Steve Benen:

The Politico‘s Michael Calderone was critical, not of the specific question or answer, but that the exchange took place at all: “Reporters typically don’t coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences, so it seemed odd that Obama might have an idea what the question would be. Also, it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuters.”

I can’t speak to the traditional protocol — the AP and Reuters deserve special placement? — but I think it’s unfortunate to characterize this a question “coordinated … for the president.” The White House realized Nico solicited questions from Iran, and the president apparently wanted to answer just such a question. There’s no reason to think this was scripted, or that Obama knew the specific question in advance. The president knew it would be about Iran generally, with an inquiry from Iran, but that hardly makes this inappropriate.

What’s more, let’s also note that this was a good question, pressing Obama on a specific point he wasn’t anxious to address. This wasn’t a pre-arranged softball; it was the opposite.

If the Politico piece is any indication, there’s likely to be a dust-up over this. That’s a shame.

UPDATE: Julian Sanchez and Around The Sphere think alike in our VU references! Anyway, Sanchez:

So, Nico Pitney has been doing fantastic work reporting on the situation in Iran, and the question he asked Barack Obama at today’s presser was certainly a far cry from a Jeff Gannon-style softball. Even so, it was clear at the time—and Pitney has apparently confirmed—that it was coordinated in a broad sense: The White House called up and invited Pitney to pass on a question from one of his Iranian correspondents (though not any particular question), and then in calling on him, Obama specifically solicited a “question from Iran.” It’s great to see a solid reporter get recognition, it’s great to see an online news outlet called on second in the Q&A, but look, we all know it’s not supposed to work like this.

UPDATE #2: Arianna Huffington:

Seems some of the boys can’t seem to understand why the president would have the nerve to call on someone whose Iran coverage has been praised throughout the media, from Charlie Rose to Andrew Sullivan to the Economist.

James Joyner:

My concern in  this case is quite narrow.  I have no real problem with Pitney getting the spotlight.  Despite the fact that he’s a left-leaning activist by profession, he’s done exemplary journalism on Iran.  Nor do I particularly object to Obama’s using Pitney’s aggregation of Iranian responses as a jumping off point.  I am, however, worried about the precedent of a president pre-screening the questions at supposed press conferences.

Had Obama said, in his prepared remarks, something to the effect that “Nico Pitney of Huffington Post has done an extraordinary job of engaging Iranian public opinion and this question in particular deserves an answer,” I would be fine with it.  Instead, though, Obama essentially set up a canned question and gave the impression to a casual observer that it was a tough question from the floor.

If this is a one-off because of the unusual circumstances of in Iran, it’s not a big deal.  But journalists are right to insist that this sort of thing not become the norm.  If the White House is going to pre-select questions, they’re not “press conferences” at all; they’re one-act plays.  And reporters ought not participate in the sham.

UPDATE #3: Matthew Cooper at The Atlantic

Matt Y:

This is, note, the second time a HuffPo reporter has asked a question at a White House press conference, asked a question that was a lot more substantive and interesting than many of the questions from the old-school media, and then prompted a freak-out. I think it would be worth asking who would be better off had that exchange not taken place and Obama instead called on someone else. I’m having trouble finding the answer.

The reality is that there’s a lot of status anxiety among the special class of reporters who do things like attend White House press conferences. In my experience, the kind of reporters who conduct in-depth investigations or write long features or correspond from war zones are facing a lot of economic anxiety about the continued stability of their careers. But the kind of reporters who basically sit around and in virtue of the fact that their employers are important get to ask not-very-interesting questions of powerful politicians and then dutifully write the answers down (or record the answers on tape and have an intern transcribe them) are facing a kind of crisis of prestige and authority. It turns out lots of people can do the job perfectly well, even people who haven’t “paid their dues” or gotten a job at an established media outlet.

Jennifer Rubin in Commentary:

Innovative or fraudulent? If the Huffington Post pretends to be a real news organization, it might want to avoid staging interchanges with officials. What is amazing, of course, is that the president couldn’t manage handling the usual softball questions or work in the information he wanted without faking a Q and A with a willing flunky.

It is hard to know what is worse — the fake policies or the fake presentation. In any event, it seems the “most transparent” administration in history is one of the least.

UPDATE #4: Paul Mirengoff in Powerline:

The proper purpose of a White House press conference is to confront the president with pertinent, well-crafted questions, not to treat all correspondents equally. The White House, in its telling, had reason to believe Pitney was in a great position to ask such a question about Iran due to his direct communications with dissidents. Under these circumstances, Obama provided a service by making sure he called on Pitney.

By tipping Pitney off that he would likely get to pose a question, the White House increased the likelihood that Pitney would carefully select the best possible question. As for Obama, he gained no substantive advantage from knowing that one of his questions about Iran would be from a dissident, via Pitney.

Perhaps Pitney’s moment in the sun will encourage members of the White House press corps from traditional media outlets to use the internet to get ahead of the curve.

UPDATE #5: Michael Goldfarb in TWS:

This botched handoff, which has the president flagrantly teeing up the question — because he doesn’t care how it looks — and then a nervous Pitney unable to adjust under pressure, was just so discordant and clumsy. If Obama had just gone straight to Pitney and commended his good work on covering events in Iran, there wouldn’t have been any big story here (it was, after all, the second time Obama had taken questions from a “reporter” working for a website that is essentially a front for the Democratic party). And if Pitney had just kept his cool and not gratuitously announced that he wanted to ask a question directly from an Iranian after the president had just said precisely that…

It doesn’t matter much now, but it just strikes me that what really burns about this whole setup is that it looked like amateur hour. If the White House is going to coordinate with a journalist on the content of his question, at least do us the courtesy of making it look good. What fun is it being in opposition if the White House is so brazen that our conspiracy theories are proved right before our eyes.