'Reporters assigned to cover the President are not reporters at all [he insists]. They're hand-out takers -- told what to report, how to report it and when to report it. Break the rules and goodbye press pass. There's no room for enterprise at all. The whole White House press operation is geared to feeding the television networks, making sure that the evening newscasts have the proper 'spin'. The rest -- and there were 150 of us when I was there -- were more or less along for the ride.'
'Never mind what the Constitution says, the role of the American media is to inform the electorate of what the Administration wants it to hear in the way the White House wants it done. The press office manages the media the way you manage a spaniel, by leaking tid-bits to TV correspondents as a reward for stories that flatter the President and punishing them for stories that make the President look bad by shutting them out of the house. You get some rebels but they don't last. They can't, if they're shut out of background briefings. So most of the White House press corps just scamper around like puppies in pin-stripe suits, caught up in the ego trip of trotting along at the heels of the leader of the free world. Ask any honest reporter who's covered that beat -- it's a grueling, back-breaking bore.'
