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Maddow went on to say that the president and vice president have both gone out of their way to make themselves available to questions from ordinary citizens, who have asked in town hall meetings about the Democratic Party’s stance on Internet freedom, about tax deductions for homeowners and how to prevent abuse of software patents.
Those substantive questions about real policy issues came from people at a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session with President Obama and from questions submitted to the president via Twitter, not from paid journalists who are charged with covering the White House.
“The professional press corps plays an important role,” said Maddow, “no matter how you feel about the Beltway media.”
But, she said, there is something important there, which you see in the gaps between the kinds of questions asked by Beltway media types and the kinds of questions ordinary people ask of people in power when they get the chance, which seem to come, in Maddow’s words, “from totally different universes.”
Politico led the pack of angry press corps dissenters in the wake of the golf trip to Florida, but media critic Greg Mitchell pointed out that when Politico‘s Mike Allen has had access to President George W. Bush during the 2008 election, he asked questions like, “All right. Mr. President, who does the better impression, Will Ferrell of you, or Dana Carvey of your father?” and “Now, Mr. President, you and the First Lady appeared on American Idol’s charity show, ‘Idol Gives Back.’ And I wonder who do you think is going to win? Syesha, David Cook, or David Archuleta?”
(Thanks to Medical Malpractice Attorney Terry Gaffney.)
There’s a “professional press corp?” Who knew?