White House bans Boston Herald from covering Obama visit

This is not new, and it’s been happening since the White House announced Fox News would be banned from the press pool since they are not a real news outlet in Oct. 2009. Back then, the press pool stood up for Fox, but is the White House-approved media in Boston keeping their collective mouth’s shut concerning the Herald being shut-out yesterday?

Looks that way so far. The Obama administration is actively scoring political coverage around the country, and if they feel your coverage has not been fair to the president, you’ll be punished. They are the lone definers of “fair reporting.”

So, what got the White House in such a hissy-fit? A Mitt Romney Op Ed piece that was in the Herald more than two months ago. From the Herald.

The flap over press access to the president began with a White House aide’s e-mail denying a Herald reporter pool duty, citing a front-page Mitt Romney op-ed story during Obama’s March 8 visit as an example of bias.

White House spokesman Matt Lehrich, an Arlington native whose uncle is top Obama adviser David Axelrod, told the Herald: “I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters. . . . I think (the Romney op-ed) raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the president’s visits.”

The Obama administration is providing two different stories … as usual. Story one…

According to emails published Wednesday in the Herald, when the newspaper tried to sign up for pool reporter duty ahead of Obama’s visit to Boston, a White House spokesman questioned whether the newspaper could cover the president fairly.

“I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” spokesman Matt Lehrich told the Herald in response to its request, according to the newspaper. “My point about the op-ed was not that you ran it, but that it was the full front page, which excluded any coverage of the visit of a sitting U.S. President to Boston. I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the President’s visits.”

Story two…

However, the White House said Wednesday that the reason the Herald wasn’t picked was because the Boston Globe had already signed up as part of the travel “pool,” which lets one local reporter cover the news for all local media outlets so as to limit the number of people in the room.

“In this particular instance, the Boston Globe had arranged with the White House Correspondents Association, independent of the White House press office, to be part of the traveling press pool. As such, there was no need for an additional local pooler,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. “As we have in the past — including the multiple occasions on which the Herald has supplied local pool reporters — we will continue to consider the Herald for local pool duty for future visits.”

So … I’m wondering … what did the Boston Globe have for an op-ed piece on the day of President Obama’s visit in March? Oh goodness, it was a critique of Obama written by Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.). As compared to Romney’s piece in the Herald, you might say Brown’s piece is a little more tempered, but the overall message was the same.

The president did not arrive on his scheduled visit to Boston until after 2 p.m. local time, and the White House is complaining about Romney’s piece being on the front page of the dead-tree version put to bed almost 12 hours before?

I’m wondering if the White House considers the March Boston visit a wash even though they got dinged by a couple of op-eds. They raised about $1 million at a big-ticket fundraiser at the Museum of Fine Arts that night before winging back to D.C. after the six hour visit.

Investor’s Business Daily asks why other media outlets won’t stand up to the White House.