No matter if “Who is a journalist” event turned into “What is journalism” debate. The panel still discussed the “rules for who is what” at the National Press Club on Friday.

Mostly the conservative Jeff Gannon faced the cannons as he struggled with answering why he thought it was quite natural for him to get into the White House. He in fact declared that there was nothing wrong either to quote what has already been mouthed by the government. Much to his embarrassment (if at all), the enlightened press booed and gave their verdict that journalism entailed more than that, by the way.

To me, the spirit had little direction. I could see why Gannon could not recollect the number of “weeks or days” he had to wait to get the pass, while answering to Ana Marie Cox. He just did not want to answer that. But what I could not understand was why the folks on the panel (which included Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The Baltimore Sun, Garrett Graff, John Stanton, Matthew Yglesias, Mike Madden) just stressed so much on how Gannon got into the White House press corps.

Admittedly and Wonkette put it bluntly (more to your growth, Ana!), briefing room at White House is such a bland place anyway. And moreover even the small room is not always full. I second. Who is keen on taking the notes for the speakers who know too little of what they speak especially when most of it is pure advertorials.

If one has to report on comments (sorry Jeff, they are not “facts”, as we found out with so-called WMD), come and blog.
I agree with Eric Brewer: “Perhaps the best line of the day came from Ana Marie Cox, who had earlier made the point that one reason Gannon got into the White House briefing room was because lately there have been a lot of empty seats, since mainstream reporters have largely given up on getting anything of substance out of the stone wall that is Scott McClellan. She went on, ”I think it would be awesome if bloggers suddenly stormed the White House briefing room and filled all those seats and started asking questions. Then maybe your reporters would take the briefing more seriously, too."
We’re trying, Ana, we’re trying."

You have said it better, Eric!

Tags: Saswat, Academic, Media, Technology, USA