Froomkin Live

Dan Froomkin from the WashPost took live questions today. He's pretty funny. Sample:

Albuquerque, N.M.: The abuse of background-only briefings by White House staff constitutes yet another way for this administration to manipulate the media.

I suggest a simple solution: give each of the handful of regular background-briefers his own anonymous designation. Karl Rove, the chief abuser of this technique by all accounts, could be always called "highly placed White House source," while Andrew Card could always be "unnamed West Wing figure." If all of the White House press used this system (a big "if", yeah) we would at least know who's floating the trial balloons and cranking on the rumor mill. Whadya say, Dan?

Dan Froomkin: Having waited a long time for the press corps to overtly revolt against this vile tradition, allow me to suggest another possibilty: What if White House reporters just started anonymously outing the anonymous briefers to bloggers? Just an idea.

Psst. Dan. Over here!