Why @BarackObama will cheerfully ignore the AP’s photo complaints.

This would be the complaint in question:

Manifestly undemocratic […] is the way Mr. Obama’s administration — in hypocritical defiance of the principles of openness and transparency he campaigned on — has systematically tried to bypass the media by releasing a sanitized visual record of his activities through official photographs and videos, at the expense of independent journalistic access.

The White House-based press corps was prohibited from photographing Mr. Obama on his first day at work in January 2009. Instead, a set of carefully vetted images was released. Since then the press has been allowed to photograph him alone in the Oval Office only twice: in 2009 and in 2010, both times when he was speaking on the phone. Pictures of him at work with his staff in the Oval Office — activities to which previous administrations routinely granted access — have never been allowed.

The Associated Press wants the same kind of access from this administration for its photographers that they enjoyed under previous administrations.  And the Obama administration will not give it to them.  Why?  For the simplest of reasons: what’s in it for the Obama administration? Continue reading Why @BarackObama will cheerfully ignore the AP’s photo complaints.