Class, Here Are Your Handouts. Now Scoot…

On the NPR show “On the Media,” host Bob Garfield discussed the growing White House habit of giving reporters press releases and photos in order to “feed the media beast and erode the impulse to do actual reporting.”

AP Photographer Susan Walsh became sick of the practice and discovered that the Bush administration has distributed more than 500 photo handouts, many of which find their way into newspapers without a notice to readers explaining that they originate from White House Productions, Inc.

If newspapers use the White House as their photographer and reporter (and fail to disclose that reality to readers–which we’ve seen before), that’s their own fault, not the White House’s.

But if the White House purposely prohibits reporters and photographers from certain events, thereby forcing them to use internal White House reports and photographs, that’s certainly going to ruffle some feathers in the press corps and understandably so. Walsh, who is president of the White House News Photographers Association, plans to fight this and her efforts haven’t earned her any friends in the Bush administration.

BOB GARFIELD: How do you know they’re unhappy?

SUSAN WALSH: A couple of phone calls and an e-mail.

BOB GARFIELD: And do they say we respectfully disagree or do they say how dare you or do they say we’re going to tap your international phone calls? I mean, what level – [OVERTALK]

SUSAN WALSH: [LAUGHS]

BOB GARFIELD: – of unhappiness are we talking about?

SUSAN WALSH: [LAUGHS] Well, as I joked with my husband, I said, well, we should prepare to be audited. [LAUGHS]

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