Obama White House, Calif. Media Cross Swords Again

The Obama White House and the California media are involved in their second public spat in a week. A tiny newspaper in northern California has incurred the wrath of the White House after being asked to change a seemingly innocuous paragraph about first lady Michelle Obama, the Daily Caller reports.

A reporter from the Pleasanton Weekly got a peek behind the scenes on Marine One, the president’s official helicopter, and wrote that Mrs. Obama didn’t speak to the pilots but acknowledged them by making eye contact.


But that made the first lady look snooty, in the administration eyes. Pleasanton Weekly President Gina Channell-Allen told the Caller that her paper “received a call from the White House asking us to take out part of the story because it reflected poorly on the first lady.”


Channell-Allen said she complied with the request, which the first lady’s press officer Katie McCormick Lelyveld denies making, because “it was not worth making a fuss over.”

Just last week, the administration was criticized for banning a San Francisco reporter because she took a picture of protestors when she was accredited only to write. The White House denied banning her.