Past And Present White House Correspondents' Association Presidents Criticize "Discourteous" And "Rude" Daily Caller Reporter
June 15, 2012 5:35 pm ET by Joe Strupp
The president of the White House Correspondents Association criticized Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro for repeatedly interrupting President Obama today during an event, calling it "discourteous" and "not the way reporters who cover the White House conduct themselves."
Caren Bohan, a Reuters White House correspondent and current WHCA president, made the comments in a phone interview with Media Matters this afternoon.
"It was discourteous and it's not the way reporters who cover the White House conduct themselves," Bohan said in the interview. "I've covered a number of events where the president has spoken and there are times when we need to shout a question to him. But typically reporters wait until he has finished speaking."
Bohan also said that Munro is an associate member of the WHCA, not a regular member.
According to the WHCA website, an associate member "must be employed on the editorial staff of a newspaper, magazine, wire service, radio, TV, cable TV or other broadcast organization or newsgathering organization that reports on the White House. Associate members may not vote or hold elective office."
Asked if Munro's membership would be affected by this incident, Bohan said such decisions are up to the WHCA executive board.
Three former WHCA presidents, meanwhile, also weighed in on the situation.
Ed Chen, a former Bloomberg White House correspondent and WHCA president during the 2009-2010 term, said in an email that Munro: "Betrays a shocking disrespect for the office. He owes the president a written apology." Chen also described it as "Rude. Forgot the manners he must have been taught once upon a time."
Ron Hutcheson, a former McClatchy White House correspondent and WHCA president in 2004-2005, stated: "Aggressive journalism serves our democracy. Rudeness serves no useful purpose. This was rudeness."
C-SPAN host and political editor Steve Scully, a former WHCA board member and former president, told Media Matters that Munro's actions were unusual.
"Anytime the president is delivering remarks from The White House, there has been a long standing tradition for the POTUS to make his statements, almost always followed by questions by the press corps," Scully said in an email. "It was indeed unusual for the president to be interrupted by a reporter during the middle of his remarks and clearly it caught President Obama off-guard, simply because it doesn't happen that often."
Steve Thomma, a current McClatchy White House correspondent who has been on the beat since the Clinton administration, called Munro's behavior "counterproductive."
"I think it's possible to be civil and persistent, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. You don't have to yell. There is nothing wrong with asking a question, but there is nothing wrong with waiting until the president finishes a statement," he said. "It seems counterproductive. If you are really trying to get an answer, you can wait. He might have answered it. I would not interrupt the president's statement to ask a question."
That this place, after lurching along for the past 2 days, hasn't crashed yet is nothing short of miraculous.
Obama, trying to shut down the free press and all.
This is just common sense, as in, hey, jerk, stop being rude, sit down, listen to the comments, and THEN you'll get to ask questions. It's really not that hard to figure out.
C-SPAN host and political editor Steve Scully, a former WHCA board member and former president, told Media Matters that Munro's actions were unusual.
"It was indeed unusual for the president to be interrupted by a reporter during the middle of his remarks and clearly it caught President Obama off-guard, simply because it doesn't happen that often."
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"Unusual"????
This has NEVER happened before...that POTUS was ...repeatedly.... yelled questions at ...even AFTER he TOLD the "reporter" that he was speaking and he was not taking questions AND told this reporter that he WAS interrupting.....but the reporter kept it up!!
Just as no POTUS has ever been shouted at during a State of the Union speech......these white racists have no respect for the office of POTUS because this POTUS is black...it is as simple as that.
Can you IMAGINE what would have happened if this were GW???....the reporter would be in GITMO by now because Cheney would have deemed it some kind of national security problem!
The term racist gets thrown around so much that it has lost its true effect, to point out real racist.
You do not know what is in the man's heart anymore than I can tell what's in your's. Chill, Presidents get yelled at a lot and had worse said about them and to them over the last couple of centuries. Take a deep breath and save yourself for the real battles with real racist without trying to find one under every rock.
2) The Right Wing have gleefully leapt over the cliffs of insanity, and are now happily rowing along in the sea of delusion, in a boat made of tin-foil hats.
Neither of these suggest to them that Mister Obama should be treated with any respect at all.
IOKIYAR, turned up to 11.
Their arrogance is surpassed only by their ignorance.
It shames me that I am the citizen of a country where 99% of Republicans can hold onto their seats in congress.
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IMHO
UTOPIA
POLITICAL SYMMETRY
The right wing blogs are awash in glee over this stupidly juvenile piece of "campaign theater." It really seems to them to be the height of hilarity and supposedly "showing Obama." They can't get enough of it.
No doubt they will see the reporter's moves as "aggressive journalism" rather than incredibly boorish behavior in any situation, let alone a Presidential statement.
Great article, thanks all.
This punk obviously showed up intending to do what he did, it was calculated and malicious. And key to it is television, as this was a big televised speech, everybody there was very aware of that. What this guy did was more akin to pushing a shaving cream pie into the President's face, than to any breach of professional etiquette or protocol.
I take this as a sign and warning, of more to come... it's too easy for these people (tucker carlson or his 'sugar daddy' foster friess) to hire and direct hecklers and other paid hooligans and agitators, and the sign and the warning is for the White House and the President's staff, to be more alert and to better screen who it is they allow to attend these type things, as the punk in this case had the means and the motive (live television) and the opportunity to disrupt the press briefing, all by way of some sort of loosely issued credential.
It was a figurative pie in the face this time, and if the President's staff aren't more careful, it could very well be a real pie in the face next time.
As an afterthought, these punks who work for tucker carlson and his kind (who in turn work for foster friess and his kind) might find it a difficult if not impossible trick to sneak the actual ingredients of a cream pie into such a press briefing and into such close proximity to the President, security being what it is...
But there's little or nothing to keep them from suddenly reaching down and taking off their shoe and hurling it at the President.
Think that sounds ridiculous?
These punks are employed in what they do almost for the exclusive reason that they hate President Obama with a maniacal and frothing passion...
Nothing's too ridiculous and very little is impossible in that context.
It's not just juveniles, and few if any of them are reckless (they know exactly what they are doing).
The guy who finances tucker carlson's website, and therefore pays both him and the punk who disrupted the press briefing today, is foster friess, who is the subject of this Los Angeles Times article...
GOP donor wonders if Obama's 'teleprompters are bullet-proof'
Not juvenile and not reckless, and not exactly "discourteous" or "rude" as the title to the above item has it.
Disrespect is all they've got.
Disrespect is all they've got.
But if that was the case, after Obama had clearly told him that he wasn't done, he would have STFU.... and he didn't.
It proves he's a liar and a cad and a rude SOB.
A coalition of the Contrarian, Antagonistic, Boorish, Atrocious and Lying that lacks the diversity of Their Lordships Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale that advised Charles II.
I think the tension is good between power and the media is good and desirable.
You can look rude or be a hero depending on the point of view.
All I can say is "Don't drink the Koolaid!"