Pitney, a reporter for Huffington Post, got the second question of the day from Obama, right after the Associated Press. Here's the exchange:
President Barack Obama: Since we're on Iran, I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post.Baker began his Thursday posting:
Nico Pitney, Huffington Post: Thank you Mr. President.
Obama: Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?
Pitney: Yes, I did, I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?
Here is the dirty little secret about White House news conferences: The president almost always knows the questions in advance.But the Times has in the past implied the Bush White House was planting questions, during its coverage of the Jeff Gannon controversy in 2005. And while Baker didn't seem 100% comfortable with the ethics of the Pitney situation, he certainly did not call Pitney, who asked Obama a challenging question, "an administration plant."
But here is the rest of that secret: That is not because White House officials are planting questions or reporters are colluding with them.
Comment: Of course White House press conferences are staged. Those talking points don't create themselves on the fly. Gotta make sure the questions match the prepared answers.
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Contrast the above with the intelligent conduct of Vladmir Putin, who in this hour-plus press meeting takes questions as they are asked (even writing them down), then answers in-depth, often including mini-lessons in history, economics or international law to amplify his point:
A true statesman: Vladimir Putin press conference, March 4, 2014 - video and transcript