Maddow/Olbermann Invited to White House Chat with Obama, But Fox Isn’t a News Organization?

Here’s a curious turn in the White House vs. Fox News fight.

On Monday, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were among several people who attended an off-the-record briefing with Pres. Obama at the White House. Sources tell us other attendees at the two-and-a-half hour chat included Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gwen Ifill of PBS and Gloria Borger of CNN. Perhaps not surprisingly, no one from Fox News was in the room.

This fact quickly turned into ammunition for the folks at FOX. Last night on “Special Report,” Bret Baier revealed the information pointing out that opinion hosts from one channel were being invited to a briefing with the Commander-in-Chief, all the while Fox was declared not a news organization.

And it continued on Fox & Friends this morning, as the troika talked about the back-and-forth ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper had with press secretary Robert Gibbs in the morning off-camera gaggle yesterday.

[However, co-anchor Gretchen Carlson didn't have her facts correct when she said, "in this reporter gaggle was Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann who are opinion people over at MSNBC." Maddow and Olbermann were in the off-the-record briefing on Monday not the on-the-record gaggle on Tuesday.]

(h/t HotAir & JohnnyDollar)

Update: The White House has sent TVNewser the complete list of those who attended the off-the-record briefing Monday: Eugene Robinson, E.J. Dionne, Ron Brownstein, John Dickerson, Rachel Maddow, Frank Rich, Jerry Seib, Maureen Dowd, Keith Olbermann, Bob Herbert, Gloria Borger, and Gwen Ifill. Several members of the staff also attended.

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