Obama Shuts Out Foreign Media

While much of the European media are consumed with insatiable "Obamamania," Christoph von Marschall, bureau chief of Berlin’s daily Der Tagesspiegel, describes how the foreign media have been almost completely denied access to the candidate. In The Washington Post he writes:

As a German correspondent in Washington, I am accustomed to the fact that American politicians spare little of their limited time for reporters from abroad. This is understandable: Our readers, viewers and listeners cannot vote in U.S. elections.

But von Marschall also suggests another reason for Obama's evasiveness:

Perhaps Obama considers members of the foreign media a risk rather than an opportunity. His campaign learned the hard way how comments to foreigners can resonate at home – recall adviser Austan Goolsbee’s hints to a Canadian diplomat that Obama’s critique of NAFTA was just campaign rhetoric, or former aide Samantha Power’s “monster” remark about Hillary Clinton to The Scotsman.

Samantha Power of Harvard University, had to resign as one of Obama's top advisers following her indiscreet remarks to The Scotsman, a leading Scottish newspaper that is not read widely in the United States.

Marschall's punch line comes from an Obama campaign adviser, whom he quotes as saying, “why should we take the time for foreign media, since there is Obamania around the world?”

In response, Régis Le Sommier, the U.S. bureau chief of Paris Match (a French magazine specializing in human interest stories, European royalty and glamorous celebrities) and Laura Haim, U.S. correspondent for Canal Plus (a French television network) wrote to The Washington Post saying they had interviewed Obama in January but had been denied further access since then. Their main point:

Foreign journalists covering the U.S. presidential election should have the same access to the candidates as American journalists have. This historic election campaign is being watched all over the world. It is not just a question of who votes in the election but also of who cares about the result.