President Barack Obama on Friday blamed media coverage of the election, more than Russian interference, for email-related issues that dogged Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign this year.

"This was an obsession that dominated the news coverage," Obama said during his end-of-the-year press conference of the rolling release of hacked emails from high-level Democrats, including Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta. "This was not some elaborate, complicated espionage scheme."

Obama called coverage of the election "troubling," even as he refused to blame hacks believed to have been engineered by Russia for Clinton's loss.

"I don't think [Clinton] was treated fairly during the election," he said, a reference to coverage that included a focus on her private email server and on the minutiae of emails hacked from Podesta's account.

But he also acknowledged that Democrats, including Clinton, did an inadequate job reaching out to disaffected voters.

He took some responsibility for failing to build a "sustaining organization" that could help transfer his own electoral success, in part leading to the party's losses in state legislatures and in governor's mansions around the country, as well as in Congress.

"What I've said is that I can maybe give some counsel and advice to the Democratic Party," he said. "And I think that the thing we have to spend the most time on because it's the thing we have the most control over, is how do we make sure that we are showing up in places where I think Democratic policies are needed ... but where people feel as if they're not being heard, and where Democrats are characterized as coastal, liberal, latte-sipping, politically correct, out-of-touch folks.