Yes, President Obama chose three You Tube personalities to interview him.
How dare he?
Veteran White House reporter Keith Koffler wrote that the stunt served to “take the presidency to a brand new low, inviting in three absurdly unqualified and generally ridiculous people to interview the president of the United States.”
Hello? Helen Thomas, anyone?
There seems to be some outrage on the right, too Why?
Is it that they aren't "qualified" to ask questions? Are we now siding with the notion that journalism schools are the only way to produce journalists?
Are we saying that freedom of the press applies only to such accredited journalists and mere bloggers or whatever do not have the same rights even if they do much the same thing?
Are we saying that these ridiculous oddballs are not good enough? Are they socially inferior to the president or the White House Press Corps which is the official pool of people deemed worthy of speaking to the president?
As if we have some effing monarchy and the people who vote for our royal president cannot be allowed to touch his hem lest he be soiled?
Why should the press corps care? If they are so much better, surely the quality of their questions will propel them ahead of the absurdly unqualified and generally ridiculous people who inhabit You Tube, right? The accredited and trained journalists might look better just standing next to them, no?
I'm hardly going to salute these three You Tube personalities. But to say they shouldn't be allowed to act like journalists? They have every right.
When our press corps starts acting like journalists and less like partisan hacks I'll have a little more sympathy to the press corps.
I suspect the press is just upset that after 7 years of sucking up to the president, he's gone beyond his first
