The Examiner’s Jeff Dufour got the scoop of the night: Who wrote the President’s comedy routine? Jon Favreau, the president’s chief speechwriter. Favreau told The Examiner it took him two weeks, working with speechwriter Jon Lovett, Obama political adviser David Axelrod, and a team of joke writers, to craft the punch lines. He also said they spent several hours on Friday, working out Obama’s opening sight gag with the teleprompter screens.
ABC Reporter Suggests Televised WH Briefings may be Bad for Journalism
Jake Tapper and Julie Mason talk about the daily WH press briefing from whcinsider on Vimeo.
In part 3 of our interview with The Examiner’s Julie Mason and ABC News’ Jake Tapper – a former print reporter for Salon.com – tell WHCInsider that televising the White House briefing may be bad for journalism.
“An argument can be made while televising the briefing, while wonderful in the interest of transparency, actually hurts the interest of journalism being committed,” said Tapper. “It becomes a show,” added Mason. “And often time’s reporters are judged on the questions they ask during the briefing, when it’s such a tiny part of what we do. It sort of becomes counterproductive.”
Most of the White House correspondents’ work is done outside the regular press briefings … and both Tapper and Mason joked that they had “occasionally fettered access” outside the scheduled briefings.
Go behind the scenes at the White House briefing room here.