White House stenographers respond to being called stenographers (Froomkin)

Are They Stenographers?



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I called attention earlier this week to ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz's quote to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, while talking about her frequent trips to international hotspots: "I'd probably go crazy if I had to stay every second at the White House and not go out and be a reporter. . . . I don't want to be a stenographer."

Matthew Felling of CBS's Public Eye writes that Raddatz's quote "wasn't taken well by some of those she sits with in the White House briefing room."

The Houston Chronicle's Julie Mason told Felling: "It's only stenography if you make it that way. . . . There are many reporters at the White House doing serious, important work in spite of the limitations. There is also a lot of humor and pathos in covering the president, and to call it merely stenography misses something."

CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller responded: "Sure, I view it as an insult if someone calls me a stenographer. Yes, I take careful notes on everything the President says. But my reports are far more than mere transcripts of those remarks. As a reporter, I boil his comments down to their essence, put them in context and challenge them for veracity."

Raddatz herself chimes in: "I have enormous respect for the White House press corps. Apologies to those who took that description as anything but a reflection on my own personal whip-cracking."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/11/15/BL2007111501197_5.html

those WH "reporters." Talk about giving us ole stenos a bad rep, whew...

And will be valuable historical records someday. The puff pieces that some of the press corps have been filing, on the other hand ...

I was a stenographer for the US Army a long time ago. We were better people than the current crop of White House "reporters."

of the bunch.....right? :silly:

I must have missed all the stories the WH correspondents did about the fake correspondent that infiltrated them without them knowing :crazy:

They have demonstrated their massive ineptitude for the past 6 years.

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Here's a very nice critique of Knoller's Bushlove

http://coppolacomments.blogspot.com/2007/05/mark-knoller-cant-handle-being-told.html