President Obama was forced to stare down one of the White House press core. The reporter on the receiving end of Obama’s ire, Politico’s Jonathan Martin, got there because he didn’t understand the social dynamic of Obama’s suprise visit to the press room. He wanted to deliver a ‘tough’ question to Obama, when Obama’s visit clearly had ‘friendly and informal’ written all over it. Maybe the reporter did understand the dynamic, but wanted to make a name for himself? Who knows, except that individual. But there are clearly better ways to get noticed. Here’s a video from Politico’s article:
President Obama seems like a tolerant individual. Why make a bad impression when you don’t have to? With a clear understanding of why Obama is there, you could tailor your question to Obama’s agenda of a friendly, light-hearted visit to get to know his press core a bit better. A bit of social savvy, an understanding of how to approach the interaction, and it is much easier to navigate it to your benefit.
January 28th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
I couldn’t agree with your sentiment more. It seems both our snippet and reality addicted society has driven (or is it the other way around) journalists to always be looking for the dirt, the problem, the culprit. I think if they and society as a whole spent more time looking for and at the positive aspects of life, our leaders, our bosses and our friends, we’d all be getting along a lot better and there would be a lot more collaboration vs. polarization throughout our country.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Ouch…. That reporter really didn’t fare well with Obama. It definitely wasn’t a good move - neither socially nor career-wise.
However, I disagree with the person above about how journalists should look for positive news. As a journalist, I heard that all the time. But I think journalists should report on whatever is newsworthy - whether it’s a murder, elections or a new development in town. If a newspaper wrote about school concerts, new ice-cream flavors and cats finding homes, it would be much of a newspaper, would it? It would be a non-profit PR agency, if that even exists. The world wouldn’t change just because people read “niceties” - that’s what books and the internet is for.
Besides, I strongly doubt anyone would want the people writing these “good” articles to actually get paid….