Obama Looooves the Times

Barack Obama is a friend of new or non-traditional media—he’s given interviews for Univision, and called on reporters from the Huffington Post or, for example, Politico. But his true love is the Gray Lady. Unlike their predecessors, Obama and his administration treat the New York Times with utter reverence, Politico reports. Obama has personally spoken with all the paper’s columnists, and even routine, A-12 Times stories boast high-level sources.

Times Magazine writer Matt Bai met with Obama seven times for one recent piece—twice as many times as he ever spoke with Bush. Bai recalls that Bush officials treated him like he was “asking for cooperation for High Times.” Obamaites not only believe in the Times’ opinion-making powers, they crave its validation, observers say. For Democrats the Times is “the true north of mainstream journalism,” said one former Times writer. (More New York Times stories.)