Nice Scoop Politico

In response to The media doth protest too much:

That Politico story on White House media manipulation is incredibly galling. There is nothing in it which bloggers (myself included) were not saying almost 4 years ago. Here’s one of Politico’s big revelations:

One authentically new technique pioneered by the Obama White House is
extensive government creation of content (photos of the president,
videos of White House officials, blog posts written by Obama aides),
which can then be instantly released to the masses through social media.
They often include footage unavailable to the press.

Back in October 2009, I wrote “Obama’s press team had a strategy, put out videos rather than talk to
reporters. That way, they control what the reporter writes, rather than
the reporter being able to go off and, ya know, ask questions.” That comment was based on statements made by Anita Dunn at a Jan. 2009 event, video of which appeared on You Tube months later:

Dunn: So it was very much…we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled
it…But increasingly by the general election, very rarely did we
communicate anything through the press that we didn’t absolutely
control.

Despite the fact that Politico is 4 years behind the curve on this story, they are still trash talking the right’s simplistic view of how media manipulation works, “Conservatives assume a cozy relationship between this White House and the reporters who cover it. Wrong.” Hey, Politico try this: Liberal media outlets assume a conservative view of White House media manipulation begins and ends with cocktail parties. Wrong.

We get it. The White House is slick. In fact, those of us who were paying attention got this breaking story 4 years ago. Nice scoop, Politico.

Update: I’d forgotten about this but ABC did a story 2 years ago titled “Obama’s Media Machine: State Run Media 2.0?” That story covered most of the same ground as this Politico piece and included similar quotes from concerned academics.