This is an interesting phenomenon, for the position of 'WH Correspondent' is arguably the most prestigious of positions for a journalist. Yet upon their arrival and throughout their tenure, it is as Steve indicates - there is really nothing of substance that emanates from that position - except for perhaps the oral back-and-forth jousting that doesn't ever seem to amount to much beyond their mutual entertainment, and the media spotlight, including the Correspondents' proclivity for basking in it for the sake of doing so.

One wonders whether there shouldn't be some other avenue for these journalists with which to really show us what they can do. Surely, one doesn't get elevated to such a lofty position unless they're pretty good at what they do. But that would probably require a new or different view of what a WH Correspondent is with respect to how journalists view themselves - so that they can continue to practice the skills that got them there in the first place, instead of wallowing in the journalistic equivalent of purgatory.

Didn't I. F. Stone suggest the same thing about 40 or 50 years ago?

Looks like someone's a wee bit embarrassed about climbing on that tire swing.

For once I agree with Steve Benen. White House briefings have become an embarrassing stream of left-wing propaganda. Journalists should ignore them and start doing serious investigative journalism on the many unanswered questions surrounding the Clinton presidency.

Journalists should ignore them and start doing serious investigative journalism on the many unanswered questions surrounding the Clinton presidency.

Parody Al wins the thread.

On the actual topic, I think the briefings should continue, but since they are rarely meaningful they should be mostly ignored. Also, the WH post should lose most of its prestige through the recognition of its general irrelevance.

I'll take one of each: scrap the briefings and bury the White House Press Corpse - it's starting to really smell. Baaaaad.

Maybe the fact that Dana Perino couldn't string a coherent thought together made the briefings useless.

I haven't read Ms. Cox's article, so I offer my cynicism as a question rather than a suggestion; but is perhaps the notion of a White House Press Corps no longer appealing because membership is no longer exclusive or prestigious?

The problem seems to be that White House correspndents figure their duties begin and end in the briefing room. Actually, that ought to be the least important part of their job. Covering briefings should be the job of an intern, in the off chance that something may happen. Correspondents ought to be covering the news, digging up stories, and doing, you know, actual journalism.

Nope, I vote with blaming the press corps, not the briefings. The briefings naturally give only what the White House wishes to say, but that's fine. Indeed, if we want any degree of transparency in government, we need to demand the president and the president's spokespeople put themselves in front of the press more often.

But then the press corps can take the time to be more than the stenographer or mouthpiece. It can try fact checking for starters, more digging for follow-up. Instead, it then seeks still more ways to play stenographer through less visible contacts, as famously with Judith Miller.

I don't say that means eliminating a White House beat either, waiting for someone else to do the digging. Who? More hope for a repeat of wonders from the metro section so long after Watergate? Nor is the media, period, not just the White House press corps terribly good. How about just some real reporting, period?

"...there's some utility of having professional journalists in the building, working sources, keeping their ear to the ground in the West Wing"

But what does this have to do with the Whitehouse Press Corps?

The so-called news organizations could keep their costs way down by replacing their highly paid news correspondents with stenographers, who, in a Republican administration, at least, would perform exactly the same functions as the correspondents do, taking down the talking points word for word and disseminating them.

Cox fails to mention another reason for doing away with the WH press corps: the fact that it is composed mostly of preening egotists, shallow careerists, closet Republicans, and assholes.

Outlets such as Politico have thrown a basketball team's worth of bodies at the project, and outlets that didn't even exist until recently -- Fivethirtyeight.com, the Huffington Post -- have created their own White House correspondent position.
HuffingtonPost.com has been around since 2005. The Politico started in 2007. This is just weird, since there is absolutely no way that AMC, herself a longtime employee of mostly internet-only political media sites (Time being the most obvious exception), didn't know this.

Ana Marie Cox writing on how to improve journalism? Clearly, more dick jokes are needed.

Well, can ^&%$can everyone *except* Helen Thomas, the only there with balls and brains and more "fight in the dog" than any ten of the rest together