Who gets access?

For the most part I haven't covered the blogger-frenzy or media cold-shoulder that are the Jeff Gannon scandal (uh, fake reporter for a fake news agency getting hard-to-come-by daily access to Whitehouse briefings, and using that access to lob softball propaganda-push questions). But I do find the story disturbing, less for its circus-like collapse than for what it further reveals about the Administration's ongoing interest in misleading the public. Echidne does a good job of summarizing some related news and also getting at my underlying discomfort in her post on Eberle and Gannon.

I believe that there is a clear ethical problem in letting political activists infiltrate the press corps for the purpose of asking planted questions or steering the questioning into a safer direction. This makes the White House press conferences into total farces. It is also an attempt to manipulate public opinion in ways that are at least sneaky if not outright nasty.

Other problems with careless screening of journalists should be obvious to even the White House. For example, a terrorist could get in on a day-pass.

Yes. These are the two parts of the real story. Lascivious photos lead to a snarky feeling of triumphalism, but in the end they distract from the real meat. Is this a government that belongs to its citizens or not?