A president without a press entourage?

For years, reporters have clamored to get on the Bus, lobbying White House officials for space on foreign trips, dogging the president's every visit.

But these days, thanks to rising fuel costs, shrinking news budgets and a president who's in the last months of his administration, fewer and fewer reporters have been hitting the road with George W. Bush.

So today, the White House Correspondents Assn. issued a decree: no plane ticket, no pool report. From now on, said the association's two presidents (outgoing Ann Compton of ABC News; incoming Jennifer Loven of the Associated Press), pool reports only for those traveling. 

Not everyone was pleased. Mark Knoller of CBS Radio objected to getting only the broadcast pool reports, since the print reporters tend to include more details. And Finlay Lewis of Copley News Service wondered about the historical record.

"Will these pool reports be retrievable at some point in the future or forever sealed off from us? Not to mention historians and others trying to get a fix on the last eight years," he asked.

As they say in radio, stay tuned.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Paul Morse/White House

Comments

[Sam]

I am afraid the press is gone not for the reasons listed above. Have you considered that no one, even the press cares and does not like this inept, inarticulate, Texas rube and I am a Republican. If you want more of this the next 4 years vote for McCain, if you want change vote for Obama.

[PNW Trojan]

Sam, you are sooo right....NO, not a FREAK Right ,but quite correct about this Benedict Bush - a traitor to America and a hero to war mongers and war profiteers. WHY any media would even give notice to the confused rants of this ICON of the Neo-Cons is beyond comprehension....let's just IGNORE the rube and send him back to Texas with the rest of his cabal.