"In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats..."

"... to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area. Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib..."

"It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all."

Marinucci was in the "print pool" at an Obama event, and she used her cell phone to make a video of protesters singing "We paid our dues/Where's our change?"



The White House seems to have objected to a reporter taking advantage of her "print pool" access to do something other than writing. Obviously, they've also got to be annoyed by the negative coverage. And now, the Chronicle, revealing confidential communications, is continuing to make the White House look bad.

Meanwhile, Marinucci isn't just some print reporter who spontaneously grabbed her cell phone to capture an unplanned event:

In fact, Carla and her reporting colleague, Joe Garofoli, founded something called "Shaky Hand Productions" - the semi-pro, sometimes vertiginous use of a Flip or phone camera by Hearst reporters to catch more impromptu or urgent moments during last year's California gubernatorial race that might otherwise be missed by TV.

The name has become its own brand; often politicians even ask if anyone from Shaky Hand will show at their event. For Carla, Joe and reporters at other Hearst newsrooms where Shaky Hand has taken hold, this was an appropriate dive into use of other media by traditional journalists catering to audiences who expect their news delivered in all modes and manners.

Well, this is great publicity for Marinucci's "semi-pro" enterprise, isn't it? But if she has this enterprise, should she be able to exploit "print pool" access? The Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein says that all journalists have their little video cams now and that, even though many journalists are denied access altogether, the ones who do get in should be able to use their ordinary tools.

And then there's the threat argument that the Obama administration will wreck its "hip, transparent and social media-loving" image if it doesn't back off on this issue.