Editor's notes: You will want to read the remainder of this article. As you do, do not forget the conspiracy involving more than 400 journalists and academics in the "Journalolist" scandal exposed last month - reporters and elitists conspiring to destroy conservative opposition to Mr. Obama's '08 campaign. What is rather humorous is the fact that the media reported this story in such a way as to imply that the conspiracy of "major media reporters" is not a continuing event. Also, add to this concern the fact that Obama has been meeting with major media most mornings of his presidency with the exception of any reporting entity that remotely smacks of "conservatism." Here is an example of this last concern. -- jds.
By Michael Calderone and John Cook
White House reporters are keeping quiet about an off-the-record lunch today with President Obama — even those at news organizations who've advocated in the past for the White House to release the names of visitors.
But the identities of the lunch's attendees won't remain secret forever: Their names will eventually appear on the White House's periodically updated public database of visitor logs. The White House posts them with a three-month lag, so records of August visits won't be available until late November. (Although, since many of those invited already work in the White House every day, their lunch visit may not register.)
The Obama White House began posting the logs in order to settle a lawsuit, begun under the Bush administration, from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which sought the Secret Service's White House visitor logs under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Bush White House argued that the logs were technically owned by the White House, which isn't subject to FOIA. CREW attacked that view in federal court, arguing that the logs are subject to FOIA both because they are created by the Secret Service -- not the White House -- and because the public has a right to know who the president and White House staffers are conferring with.
And guess who filed briefs supporting that argument? Virtually every newspaper that covers the White House.
The Washington Post filed an amicus brief in in February 2008 arguing that the names of White House visitors should be released, and it was joined by the Associated Press, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal owner Dow Jones, USA Today, the Hearst Corporation, the New York Daily News, the Newspaper Guild, the Society of Professional Journalists, and a host of other news outlets.
It's unclear, of course, whether reporters for any of those newspapers attended the lunch — because none of them will say. But it's highly likely that some, if not all, of the people who are now refusing to divulge whether or not they visited the White House for the Obama lunch work for newspapers that asked a federal court to compel the Secret Service to divulge a list of all White House visitors. It's understandable that reporters will not discuss what transpired in the off-the-record meeting, but several won't even confirm if they attended.
The Upshot reached out to several White House reporters whose news organizations joined the amicus brief , including the Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman, Reuters' Caren Bohan, the Washington Post's Michael Shear and USA Today's David Jackson (who also serves as president of the White House Correspondents Association). When reached, they all declined to comment.
Obama has met several times with columnists and television pundits for off-the-record lunches to discuss a variety of issues since becoming president. Today, he reached out to the White House beat reporters who file their papers' straight news stories.
But not every reporter jumped at the chance to attend. The New York Times was invited but decided against going to the lunch. . . . . READ MORE >>>>
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