Obama administration media transparency? Don’t count on it

By Michael Fraase

Thursday, 16 October 2008 07:25AM CST

Section: Politics

Making sausageIf you thought the Obama administration would bring a refreshing new level of transparency—including transparency with the media—well, I guess you were wrong. Count me among the many.

Liza Mundy, writing for Slate, outlines the difficulties she encountered with the Obama campaign in getting access to sources for a book about Michelle Obama.

Mundy approached Michelle Obama’s relatives—both close and fairly distant—to have them “walk [her] through what they knew of her life” only to have the Obama campaign instruct the potential sources not to talk to long-form print authors.

It’s common practice during the political silly season to have campaigns instruct everyone to check in before talking to the media about anything. But keep in mind that this stonewalling by the Obama campaign comes after Michelle Obama told Michelle Powell and Jodi Kantor, writing for the New York Times, “I will walk anyone through my life. Come on, let’s go.”

Here’s Mundy on why we should care:

“Why should you care about one writer’s shaggy-dog story? In one sense, none of this is tragic; every reporter knows that being denied access to the usual contacts means you dig harder and turn up new voices. But you should care if you are expecting an Obama presidency to achieve new levels of transparency. Obama, if elected, may well bring many changes to Washington, but unusually open access to the media—and, by extension, the public—is not necessarily going to be one of them.”

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