It's okay if you're a 'serious' journalist

After all the all the outraged howling about the White House "managing" the media when President Obama "broke protocol" and called on a lowly blogger at that presser, there's a marked absence of complaints about this cozy little gathering at the White House

Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy.

... Gawker has learned that the White House gave tickets to virtually every major news organization that covers the president—the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, CBS News, and so on, about 30 in all.

The "reporters" were invited on the condition that they not blog, twitter or otherwise mention that they were there. Any coverage was limited to one lonely pool reporter who was apparently kept at bay in some corner until the President made his remarks. Indeed in the coverage the next day, Mike Allen of Politico deleted the reference to his having been sighted at the festivities.

Now you might have thought that the entitled ethics police of the press corp would have refused to attend unless they were free to put it on the record. I seem to recall when that was a major protocol honored in the industry. But I guess some protocols are more important than others. Apparently, only the ones that bruise the egos in the club of unearned privilege count.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]