the physical equivalent of press releases: Everything is vetted beforehand, and there are very few opportunities to get antagonistic with the president and push back on issues that need pushing back on.

I'd be more sympathetic if there were some kind of actual history of journalists asking difficult questions on our presidents. When is the last time an interviewer really pushed Obama actually hard on a real issue? Say, on assassinations without judicial review of people off a battlefield, or on NSA spying? At length, with intelligent follow-ups?

I'm not aware of any recent examples, but I'd be pleased to learn that I'm wrong.

If this were the Washington Post of long ago making this claim, then, yeah, I'd agree with them about the possibility they'd ask difficult and intelligent questions. Now? Not so much.

As it's stood for the past couple of decades, when you say there are "non-conservative" voices making this claim and then cite the Washington Post, I find myself still waiting for you to quote a non-conservative.

Didn't Obama just do an interview with Bill Oreilly before the superbowl?

Not that I'm suggesting Orielly is a real journalist (he's not), but at least it wasn't a creampuff, scripted interview.

I think of it as Obama going over the heads of the "traditional media" gatekeepers, and taking his message directly to the people.

And as long as the traditional media's position is apparently "it's not our business to separate Obama's actual policies from the Republicans' lies about them" - which sounds horrible, but they've pretty much explicitly said this! - then Obama owes them NOTHING.

I have to agree with Pope Buck I - as long as the current media doesn't care about anything but boosting their ratings (if it bleeds it leads) rather than finding the truth I don't blame Obama one bit for avoiding that bear trap full of lies and sound bites.

You act like lap dogs and all you're going to get are table scraps.

Where was all this hew and cry when Bush the Dumber was only appearing on friendly outlets, if at all. Didn't we go multiple entire years without even a single press conference?

Say what you will about Obama, he's been much more accessible and responsive.

"Unscripted appearances might result in public relations nightmares for the administration, but they'd be good for the nation."

The president's entire life is completely scripted into :15 min increments, all day, every day. Also, he's ostensibly "in charge" of the world's pre-eminent hegemonic power. I don't believe we're going to get any candid responses from him at all. Even the apparently candid moments are scripted. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. And I voted for him!

See the Jan 27th issue of the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/…

The news media is a sad joke. Chuck Todd and his ilk make my stomach churn.

...the traditional media's position is apparently "it's not our business to separate Obama's actual policies from the Republicans' lies about them"

This.

Any question the Post is likely going to ask Obama will be along the lines of "why do you suck so much?" There is nothing to be gained from an interview with them. Even the O'Reilly interview was more useful if only to see right-wing irrationality in action. The Washington Post and The New York Times *pretend* to be objective which makes their right-wing framing that much more insidious.

And, for the record, the best interview ever conducted of a sitting president was when Amy Goodman ambushed President Clinton on election day 2000. You will never see anything like that from the mainstream press today.

@4 Well put. The WaPo and others are just upset that someone else is getting the access that they have treated so shabbily all these years. If the only kind of "hard hitting" interview we're going to get is BillO flogging for the right (and his own profile), I'd rather have pro comedians work with POTUS.

Dear WaPo and NYTimes - You're going to end up butthurt if you're constantly bending over. If the mainstream media had spine, we wouldn't see such massive numbers of Americans fundamentally misinformed on basic facts. What have you done to deserve an interview? Look at your track record for fucks sake.