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UPDATED: Why the Village is so mad at Nico Pitney

June 25, 2009 10:49 am ET by Eric Boehlert

Within hours of online writer Nico Pitney asking a single question at a WH presser, the WashPost's Milbank swooped into action, loudly mocking Pitney's involvement as being terribly troubling and phony. But please note that in 2005 when it was revealed that right-wing partisan James Guckert had been waved into the WH press room nearly 200 times without proper credentials, wrote under an alias (Jeff Gannon), and asked Bush officials softball questions, Milbank remained mum. (He wasn't alone.)

According to Nexis, Milbank never wrote about the Gannon story.

But Pitney, the national editor for one of the most-read and widely respected online news outlets? His singular WH presence sent Milbank into an immediate tizzy.

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    • Author by patachon (June 25, 2009 11:29 am ET)
         
      I don't get it. The 'protocol' for these press conferences dictates who gets called and in what order. That's not collusion but messing with it and allowing Pitney to ask something is?
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    • Author by seeryer (June 25, 2009 11:42 am ET)
         
      Milbank has really shat the bed over the last year. For a minute in early 2008 I thought he was worth following. As soon as I started to I quickly realized how unserious and petty he really is. His writings ooze snark and ridicule and I expected more from someone at the Washington Post. The bottom line is Nico Pitney in 2010 or 2011 will be more influential than Milbank and other inside the Beltway dying media types and they are scared shatless over it. The Huffington Post will certainly be more influential than the Washington Post in a few years. In fact, HP may be more influential today. At least Tapper told Ingraham it was a tough question. But the point for the dinosaurs in the Beltway Media is that protocol was broken. Protocol wasn't broken, the hearts of the hacks in the belway media have broken. They are no longer turned to for insight. BTW, over-under on the Milbank and Cilliza fireside chat being nixed? I say by mid July they will realize how awful and embarassing it is for the Post.
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      • Author by vwcat (June 25, 2009 11:59 am ET)
           
        Milbank is suppose to be a humorous pundit on politics. Like in the grand tradition of Buchwald. But, Milbank fails by mistaking snark, sarcasm and ridicule for humorous observations and comment.
        It's like having O'Reilly trying to be like Cronkite. Or employing neocons as op-ed political observers and commentators.
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        • Author by seeryer (June 25, 2009 1:46 pm ET)
             
          Agreed. Too bad his bosses don't realize how bad his humor is.
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      • Author by coldteablues19577325 (June 25, 2009 2:17 pm ET)
           
        Why are they MSM guys upset about this? Are they that unaware of President Obama's internet savviness? Why shouldn't an internet presence be 'allowed?'
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    • Author by peace4all (June 25, 2009 11:48 am ET)
         
      i think that president obama is smart here. he knows that many of us get our information from online sources and so is beginning to get them involved in getting out the white house messege. i think this is because to remain viable places like huffpo, MMFa, TP and others must report information that is accurate. the mainstream press has not had to be accurate for many years and could spin however they want. now the MSM is annoyed because they are losing their influance. Obama became president by using the internet to it's full potential and now he is using it to forward his agenda. i say good for him and if the MSM does not want to end up in the dustbin of history maybe instead of crying about blogger influance they should try giving the people (who there supposed to be looking after) accurate information.
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    • Author by Greytdog (June 25, 2009 11:51 am ET)
         
      Milbank is a hack who doesn't want to give up being the point man in DC for the irrelevant WaPo. Pitney is doing the very job of journalism that the Beltway Babies decry. . .
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    • Author by vwcat (June 25, 2009 11:54 am ET)
         
      Traditional media feels threatened by the bloggers. There is deep resentment of them as the media sees them as the reason papers are going under, ect.,
      Funny how the same media has not bothered to examine why people have abandoned them for blogs...
      Or adjust their content accordingly (clue: people want straight info and hard news. Not gossip, shallow and silly fluff).
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      • Author by Col. Harlan Sanders (June 25, 2009 2:01 pm ET)
           
        Traditional media feels threatened by the bloggers

        Very true, VWCat. This was mentioned by other posters on this topic over the past few days, but I don't think it can be said enough. The Corporate Media is starting to see the effects of the internet, sources who can compete with (and often surpass, in competence)them on a fraction of the budget.

        The down side is that there are a slew of crazy propaganda sites, but hopefully the real news sites will rise above on their reputations.In the meantime, the big money GOP media is doing everything they can to tell their audience to ignore websites except for those that follow the conservative line (Newsbusters, WorldNut and FoxNation are just fine, I'm sure).

        Take a look at the other MMFA items on the Pitney question. There are only a couple of conservative posters here who fell for the "planted question" spin, but read their comments.They've been told that a left wing site was given a pre-written question by Obama , and "ushered in" to the presser.

        I like to think that these are a very small minority of Americans, that no significant group can be manipulated this easily, but the GOP still seems to get about half the voters, so I try not to overestimate the slowest of my fellow Americans.
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    • Author by almaevans6781 (June 25, 2009 1:00 pm ET)
         
      The Washington Post has become a parody of itself. News is too boring for these folks. Reporting the news is really too boring. So they just shape everything as if it is a soap opera. Excuse me WaPoo, we have soap operas for entertainment. News of the nation is not supposed to be entertaining.
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    • Author by paul8616 (June 25, 2009 7:06 pm ET)
         
      It's easier for Milbank et al to write a piece about how their feelings were hurt than it is to write about a complex issue like Iran. They say: It doesn't matter what the President said about Iran, or that a 'blogger asked the question on behalf of a real, live Iranian citizen who risked his welfare to use the internet.
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    • Author by elephty (June 25, 2009 9:18 pm ET)
         
      The only reason that the Villagers are so upset is because their main sources the Republican Party, the corporate talking point providers, and the intelligence community were left out of the loop that has been perpetrating fraud to gain complete control over the economy while feeding Americans anti-American pro-corporate propaganda over, at least, the past two decades. This scheme was the reason for the collapse of the economy, the invasion of Iraq for twelve trillion in profit, and the attempt to give Wall Street the money from Social Security contributions.

      My tin foil hat may be firmly in place, but conspiracies take place all of the time though most, certainly not all, of them are unsuccessful. As former President Herbert Walker Bush said, "If the American people knew what we were really up to they would have us dragged out of town behind horses." Is it about time for Americans to raise their pitch forks?

      Some people believe that suckers are a natural renewable resource that god provided to be harvested, and are certain of this because it made so many of them.
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    • Author by elephty (June 25, 2009 9:31 pm ET)
         
      If the newspapers, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The LA Times etc., were sincere about not going out of business they would discontinue being manipulative rags, and become objective information providers making them relevant in Americans' lives once more. Instead, they prefer to be tools of a wannabe American aristocracy with the power to force the people to accept its mendacity rather than have to bother with propaganda.
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    • Author by gjdodger (June 25, 2009 10:15 pm ET)
         
      I heard on NPR the MSM was mad because the White House people knew what he was going to ask and wanted Obama to be able to answer it in the context of a press conference. Is that correct? Was there collusion?
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