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White House-press relations worse than ever, report says

A new study from the Columbia Journalism Review finds that the current White House relationship with the press is the least open it has ever been, a longstanding belief among the Washington press corps.

A review of every official exchange President Barack Obama has had with the press in 2014 in addition to interviews with more than a dozen reporters “reveals a White House determined to conceal its workings from the press, and by extension, the public,” the report reads.

In his few interactions with the press, Obama gives long answers, leaving little time for other questions, and rarely makes news, often punting to later announcements, the study found.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest stopped holding off-the-record gaggles in the mornings in his office “because reporters would just stand around tweeting everything Earnest said,” according to CJR.

Part of the problem, the study found, was the quick nature of the news cycle. Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs complained that no one asked Obama about the Senate torture report in a December press conference, held two weeks after its release.

“Gibbs said a good question for his former boss would have been, ‘How do you balance, Mr. President, your first act, of outlawing this [torture]’ with ‘watching a 6,000-page report being issued during your administration, in which you held no one accountable’ for the behavior. ‘And then just step back’ and hear the president reflect on it, Gibbs said.”

In spite of these difficulties, correspondents said there’s still value in having a pool following Obama around each day, since it can help gauge his mood and health.

Read the full report here.

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Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.