White House Reporters Trade Puff for Access

Press secretary will also hit the speech circuit

(NEWSER) - Robert Gibbs confirms that he's part of the long-rumored White House shakeup today, telling the New York Times that he'll leave the job in early February to become a political adviser. He's also looking to pick up a little loot on the speaking circuit. A successor is expected to be named within two weeks; aides tell the Times that President Obama is finalizing his staff changes today. More»

Reporters' gripes about Obama pile up

(NEWSER) - The right likes to say the media is in love with President Obama; if so the affair has gone sour. White House reporters find Obama's administration thin-skinned, vengeful, and unfairly stingy with information, they tell Politico . "The White House seems to imagine that releasing information is like a tap that can be turned on and off at their whim,” the New Yorker's George Packer—one of the few Politico sources willing to be named—said. More»

(NEWSER) - Robert Gibbs said today Sonia Sotomayor regrets the way she phrased 2001 comments that have some Republicans calling the Supreme Court nominee a racist, the Hill reports. “I think she'd say that her word choice was poor,” the White House press secretary said. He suggested that Sotomayor was not trying to say Latina women make better judges than white men, but that “your experiences impact your understanding.” More»

(NEWSER) - With decisions that some presidents don’t make in 4 years packed into his first 100 days, what President Obama’s advisers deride as a “Hallmark holiday” presents a legitimate occasion for a report card, and for a Politico team to catch up with White House insiders. “I don’t want to go through accomplishments, because I feel like I’m just walking around with a punch card,” Rahm Emanuel says. More»

President looks to get past media filter

(NEWSER) - When it came to getting past what he called “the media filter,” President Bush’s favorite strategy was to go around it. President Obama’s style is more to go over, under, around, and through, courting both the new and mainstream media in an effort to communicate directly with the public, Politico reports. “You’ve got lots of people that aren’t cable junkies or news junkies,” Obama's press secretary said. More»