USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page reportedly told a room of reporters the Obama administration is “more dangerous” and “more restrictive” to the press than any other administration in history.
The comments were made at a White House Correspondents Association seminar and reported on by the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple. Wemple characterized the remark as “a clear reference to the Obama administration’s leak investigations and its naming of Fox News’s James Rosen as a possible ‘co-conspirator in a violation of the Espionage Act.'”
The seminar was a venue for prominent Washington journalists to air their grievances with the Obama administration and share their horror stories. Among the other notable stories Wemple shared:
- ABC’s Jon Karl told of how the White House wasn’t giving out any information when he was covering the Boston Marathon bombing, and he had to dig around just to find out the feds were sending an interrogation team to Boston.
- Veteran New York Times reporter Peter Baker found it shocking that when covering a breaking story, a White House staffer only volunteered that Obama had been briefed on an issue if he wasn’t quoted on it.
- Bloomberg’s Margaret Talev noted how the White House was even refusing to disclose its wine list.
[h/t Washington Post]