Norah O'Donnell and husband Geoff Tracy at Chef Geoff's Tysons Premier Party
CBS announced that Norah O’Donnell is leaving her post as a bureau reporter for NBC to take on CBS’s chief White House correspondent position. Additionally, O’Donnell will become the principal substitute anchor for Face the Nation. Chip Reid, who currently holds the position of chief White House corresponent for CBS, will see his role shift to that of national correspondent “with greater editorial range,” according to CBS.
Norah O’Donnell is an Emmy award winning reporter who joined NBC News in 1999 after a stint as a reporter for Roll Call and serving as a contributor and analyst for MSNBC.
President Obama’s use of new media and social networking was widely praised during the campaign. That same focus a year into his presidency has some in the White House press corps grumbling, according to Howard Kurtz in today’s Washington Post:
“President Obama hasn’t held a full-scale news conference since July. Instead, he answered a dozen people’s questions last week on YouTube, most of the easily finessed and — extra bonus! — no annoying follow-ups of the kind posed by real, live journalists.”
Watch the president’s YouTube interview below:
“It’s a source of great frustration here … It’s important for us to hold the president’s feet to the fire,” CBS White House correspondent Chip Reid told Kurtz.
Helen Thomas and Chip Reid argued with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday about the administration’s efforts to control the press.
Thomas didn’t let it rest there, she told CNS news that the Obama administration has passed Nixon’s in those efforts, “What the hell do they think we are, puppets? They’re supposed to stay out of our business.”
Read the rest of the CNS news article and the transcript of her exchange with Robert Gibbs here.
At issue: the Obama press office arranged to have a Huffington Post reporter submit a question to the President based on questions sent to the President from people in Iran.
Remarks Suggest President is Open to an Investigation
April 21 — Press secretary Robert Gibbs faced persistent questioning from the White House press corps, which focused primarily on whether President Obama is now open to possibly holding former Bush administration officials — including the former president — accountable for CIA interrogation methods of suspected terrorists.
In response to reporters after his meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah earlier in the day, Obama said, “If and when there needs to be a further accounting of what took place during this period, I think for Congress to examine ways that it can be done in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process that can sometimes break down and break it entirely along party lines, to the extent that there are independent participants who are above reproach and have credibility, that would probably be a more sensible approach to take.” Read more…
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