White House officials once again advanced its contention that Fox News and its commentators are not journalists, rather a propaganda wing of the Republican Party. During the gaggle, an informal on-the-record but off-camera briefing between the White House press secretary and some members of the media, Robert Gibbs and ABC’s Jake Tapper had this conversation:

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

(Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC –

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That’s our opinion.

I wonder if Major Garrett, Fox’s White House correspondent, was in the room.

Swamppolitics.com reported that Michael Clemente, senior vice president of news at FOX News, replied by saying: “Hundreds of journalists come to work each day at FOX News all deeply committed to their craft. It’s disappointing that the White House would be so dismissive of their fine work and continue their vengeful war against a news organization.”

Brett Baier of Fox reported on air today that Clemente said: “Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of folk focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about, like jobs, healthcare and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues.”

Ruth Marcus, who writes for the PostPartisan blog at the Washington Post, had this to say this morning:

Sure, it’s legitimate — and standard practice — to dispense access and coveted interviews to favored reporters and news outlets. So is subtly doing the opposite: letting a reporter who’s filed a tough story know that he or she is in the doghouse by leaking a scoop to a competitor. The Bush administration routinely briefed conservative columnists before a big presidential speech; the Obama White House tends to call in ideological sympathizers. This is the way the game is played.

Where the White House has gone way overboard is in its decision to treat Fox as an outright enemy and to go public with the assault. Imagine the outcry if the Bush administration had pulled a similar hissy fit with MSNBC. “Opinion journalism masquerading as news,” White House communications director Anita Dunn declared of Fox. Certainly Fox tends to report its news with a conservative slant — but has anyone at the White House clicked over to MSNBC recently?

That statement, in turn, brought a quick rebuttal from the left. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters writes:

In a way, Marcus is simply reinforcing the age-old Beltway truism: When Democrats criticize the press it’s whiny and petty, but when Republicans do it, it’s savvy and brash. (Just ask veterans of the Clinton administration.)

But more specifically, Marcus is commenting on a media landscape of which she is completely ignorant. For instance, she claims Fox News operates just like MSNBC did during the Bush years. MSNBC featured Bush bashers Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, and today Fox News boasts Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, so c’mon what’s the big deal. I guess the big deal is I don’t remember either Olbermann or Maddow comparing MSNBC employees to persecuted Jews during the Holocaust, which was the twisted comparison Beck recently made regarding the Fox News staff.

In other words, I don’t recall Olbermann or Maddow going bat shit crazy on national television, scribbling away on a chalkboard as they fantasized about connecting George Bush to every conceivable strain of historical evil. And I don’t remember either MSNBC host launching hateful and hollow witch hunts against semi-obscure administration officials, the way Hannity has latched onto the homophobic attacks against Kevin Jennings.

But guess what? The same elite pundits who are telling the White House is chill out over Fox News are the same elite pundits who for weeks have refused to acknowledge the hateful Jennings witch hunt. Which brings me back to my original question: Do journalists like Marcus even watch Fox News? Do they understand what its programming day now looks like? My guess is the answer is no, even though lots of them have taken it upon themselves to speak out as Fox News experts; to lecture the White House about how normal and mainstream the cable outlet is.

Josh Gerstein and Mike Allen of POLITICO write today that the White House effort is to get other journalists to think twice before following Fox’s stories in their own coverage.

“We’re doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible,” a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”

“And then you had a couple days of breast-beating from The Washington Post and The New York Times about whether or not they were fast enough on the ACORN story,” the official said. “And it’s like: Wait a second, guys. Let’s make sure that we keep perspective on what are the most important stories, and what’s being driven by a network that has a perspective. Being able to make that point has been important.”

That raises a red flag to me. Are journalists supposed to take the White House’s lead as to which stories they should cover? Aren’t the Post and Times capable of deciding for themselves what stories need to be chased and what is nonsense? This is a judgment call made by assigning editors every day. For instance, the birther stories are rightfully ignored by most journalists because they are blatantly absurd. Sometimes it seems, only Chris Matthews is keeping that one alive. But the ACORN story, even though being instigated by a conservative filmmaker, was news because of the videotapes that could not be ignored.

It’s up to journalists to decide what they should cover, and at no point should they take their lead from the White House, whether it is occupied by a Republican or a Democrat. And if White House officials think its their role to determine for the national media what the important stories of the day are, then we are all in a lot of trouble.

And finally, for those who are interested in signing petitions. MoveOn.org has started one urging Democrat members of Congress to stay off the network as long as the president avoids appearing on it.

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn talked about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama campaign’s successful efforts to control the media and bypass the editor’s filter.

“Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, that a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was. … Making the press cover what we were saying.

“One of the reasons we did so many of the [Obama's chief campaign manager] David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters.

“We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it.”

Dunn, who is the key figure in the Obama administration’s current battle with Fox News, was speaking at a Jan. 12, 2009, event focusing on Obama’s media tactics and hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, which promoted collaboration between the United States and the Dominican Republic.

This video was uncovered by World Net Daily, which has been criticized by the left. The video itself isn’t news because its nine months old, nor is it news that a political candidate will try to control the media. But it is rare to see a candidate’s communication director publicly describe the campaign’s efforts in such detail.

It’s also surprising to see Dunn warn that anything you say can and will be posted on YouTube.

I’ve had all kinds of probelms with Twitter this morning, and I guess I’m not the only one.

On the site’s corporate blog, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said: “On this otherwise happy Thursday morning, Twitter is the target of a denial of service attack. Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users.

“We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate.”

Jerry A. DiColo of Dow Jones Newswire describes this type of attack for non-geeks such as me:

Denial-of-service attacks are a common weapon employed by cyber criminals to disrupt the working of Web sites. Perpetrators enlist millions of computers to attempt to access a particular site. The site cannot handle the massive increase in traffic, and is rendered inaccessible.

While disruptive and hard to trace, this type of cyber attack is considered by experts to be a relatively unsophisticated technique. The attack itself doesn’t attempt to infiltrate the internal operations of a company’s computer infrastructure. It simply renders its Web site inactive.

Barret Lyons writes on bylon.com how it could be a DDoS attack:

At a presentation I gave at an International Terrorism and Intelligence conference, I discussed how Twitter is an obvious DDoS target. Well about 30 days later they’re in the thick of it.

Twitter is down and their network has clear signs of massive failure. In the several hundred (if not more) cases of DDoS I have had experience with, this looks like a very clear case of an attack.

Congestion is a very clear sign of a DDoS attack. In this case you will see on a traceroute clean hops up to the last few, where the network starts to get congested. Basically that means each step of the network is clean until things concentrate at the end.

The assumption is the congestion is caused by DDoS and not a system administrator creating a routing loop or something whacky like that.

They also only appear to have ONE network provider (NTT), which is rather insane these days. It also makes targeting Twitter a much less complicated task.

Using very basic tools it is possible to see that the congestion on their network is rather extreme. It’s possible to deduce that the congestion is probably due to a DDoS attack.

There have been reports that Facebook and Live Journal are having trouble as well. But my Facebook page is alive a well for the moment.

I always hated poll stories. To me, they were a poor substitute used by news organizations for genuine investigative reporting, which is much harder to do than to hire a pollster to ask silly questions. But they populate our media every week, giving some political junkie on either side of the aisle to parade around for a few days to say “Look, most people think like me!”

Today brings another example of a poll that for this news cycle will bring joy to the right, but is so meaningless its embarrassing.

CNN Opinion Research Poll interviewed 1,136 adult Americans, including an oversample of African-Americans, by telephone by Opinion Research Corporation on July 31-Aug. 3, 2009. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or
minus 3 percentage points.

On Question 3, pollsters asked, “Do you consider the first six months of the Obama administration to be a success or a failure?” Fifty-one percent said “success,” 37 percent said “failure,” 11 percent said “too soon to tell,” and 1 percent had no opinion.

Then it compares a similar poll conducted in August 2001 about then-President George Bush. Fifty-six percent said “success,” 32 percent said “failure,” 7 percent said “too early to tell,” and 5 percent said they had no opinion.

Quickly, this was touted on Drudge as “CNN POLL: After 6 Months, More View Obama Presidency a ‘Failure’ Than Bush…” and on RealClearPolitics as “After 6 Months, More View Obama’s Presidency as a ‘Failure’ Than Bush’s.”

The problem is, only 11 percent got it right this year, as compared to 7 percent in 2001, and now the poll is being touted as proof of Obama’s failure as a president.

You can’t judge any president as a success or failure after six months. It’s ludicrous. We like stories that nurture this instant gratification world. It’s easy to put a number on a president’s success or failure and say “Here it is!” But in reality, Obama’s policies will only be judged for their effectiveness decades down the road.

Six months into Abraham Lincoln’s first term, all 11 states in the South had seceded; the battle of Bull Run had been a disastrous loss, and the country was in the first days of its ugliest war. If we had polls back then, I would imagine his numbers would be worse. But I would also doubt anyone now thinks of Lincoln as a failure — at any point in his life.

You simply cannot judge a president’s success on only six months of work. Sometimes a president’s impact can only be seen through the light of history. Heck, even Nixon is getting kudos for some of his accomplishments 40 years after the fact.

Instead of spending the money on a poll, CNN should do some of the hard work no one else seems to want to do. A start could be actually getting a few reporters to read through the thousands of pages in the various health-care bills, and get insurance and health experts together to analyze them. Then report on what each bill would really do to Americans. Heck, that’s more than our congressmen are doing. It’s harder work, but it’s better journalism.

News Cycle counts 2,478 employees being laid off from newspapers in the United States in the month of July. This figure pushes the annual total to about 13,000 newspapers employees having lost their jobs.

It was the second most difficult month this year (only March had a larger number), and was fueled by a large cut by the Gannett chain and an outsourcing of distribution operations by the Orange County Register in California.

Email me to report any job cuts in the newspaper industry.

July 31: The New Mexican of Santa Fe, N.M., 12 people.
July 29: Orange County Register, 919 people as the Santa Ana, Calif.,-based newspaper contracts its delivery operations out to the Los Angeles Times.
July 28: Milwaukee Journal, 37 people.
July 27: The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., 10 people.
July 22: The Loudoun Easterner, of Sterling, Va., ceases publication. The number of employees who lost their jobs was not released by its owners, Landmark Communications Inc.
July 21: The Portland (Ore.) Tribune, two people.
July 15: The Contra Costa Times of Walnut Creek, Calif., Oakland Tribune and Tri-Valley Herald of Pleasanton, Calif., 17 people.
July 10: Claremont (N.H.) Eagle Times, 120 people.
July 8: Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, 18 people.
July 8: Bay State Banner in Boston suspends publication, 12 people.
July 2: Gannett Co. Inc., 1,331 people, according to Gannettoid.com.

In June, 318 people were laid off from newspapers in the United States.
In May, 1,084 people were laid off.
In April, 1,350 people were laid off from newspapers in the United States.
In March, at least 3,943 people lost their jobs from newspapers.
In February, 1,492 people were let go from their newspaper jobs.
In January, newspapers reported 2,256 layoffs to start the year.

Email me to report any job cuts in the newspaper industry.

CNN is reporting that Euna Lee and Laura Ling have arrived in California aboard former President Bill Clinton’s plane.

An aircraft carrying Clinton, Euna Lee and Laura Ling touched down shortly before 6 a.m. PT (9 a.m. ET) amid tight security at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank outside Los Angeles.

Crowds of dignitaries and journalists gathered for the arrival. The aircraft will be brought into a hangar for a scheduled news conference.

CNN also got some fresh reaction from the families and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

Doug Ling, Laura Ling’s father, reacted to the news of his daughter’s release outside his home in Carmichael, California, saying it was “one of the best days in my life.”

“I figured, sooner or later, they’d be back,” he said.

In Los Angeles, family friend Welly Yang said the Lings had “done everything they could, while respecting the North Korean government, to try and get Laura home.”

He predicted that Ling would remain a journalist. “Despite this terrifying experience, I can’t imagine that Laura would give up her passion to tell stories that otherwise wouldn’t be heard.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her relief that the two women were released. She spoke from Nairobi, Kenya, where she is taking part in a multination visit to Africa.

“I spoke to my husband on the airplane, and everything went well. We are extremely excited that they will be reunited soon when they touch down in California,” she said. “It is just a good day to be able to see this happen.”

UPDATE, 9 p.m. Eastern: AP is reporting that the two journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, are indeed on board former President Bill Clinton’s plane and on their way back to the United States.

His mission accomplished, former President Bill Clinton left Pyongyang early Wednesday accompanied by American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned the women from their 12-year prison sentences.

Clinton and the two Californians were heading back to the U.S., his spokesman Matt McKenna said, less than 24 hours after the former U.S. leader landed in the North Korean capital on a private, humanitarian trip to secure their release.

The women, dressed in short-sleeved shirts and jeans, appeared healthy as they climbed the steps to the plane and shook hands with Clinton before getting into the jet, APTN footage in Pyongyang showed. McKenna said the flight was bound for Los Angeles, where the journalists will be reunited with their families.

North Korean President Kim Jong Il has pardoned and ordered the release of two U.S. journalists, state-run news agency KCNA said Wednesday.

Reports are circulating on Twitter that the pair will leave North Korea on Clinton’s private plane. But FOX News said that Clinton has already left the country and that it is not clear if the pair are on the plane.

Former President Bill Clinton has left North Korea with his party, state media reported, after he negotiated for the release of two jailed American journalists.

The official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch that Clinton and others left early Wednesday by plane. The report did not specify whether the two American journalists pardoned by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il were among those who left Pyongyang on the flight.

Kim issued the “special pardon” for the reporters after Clinton made a surprise visit to the communist nation to negotiate their release Tuesday morning. The release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sign of North Korea’s “humanitarian and peaceloving policy,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.

Experts had speculated that Kim was looking for a photo op as a concession with the United States. That photo op, seen at left, came at the expense of a past president, not the current one.

CNN ran this report, which detailed some of the negotiations:

“Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it,” the [North Korean] news agency reported. “Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view.

“The meetings had candid and in-depth discussions on the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. in a sincere atmosphere and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them.”

The report said Clinton then conveyed a message from President Obama “expressing profound thanks for this and reflecting views on ways of improving the relations between the two countries.”

It added, “The measure taken to release the American journalists is a manifestation of the DPRK’s humanitarian and peace-loving policy.

“The DPRK visit of Clinton and his party will contribute to deepening the understanding between the DPRK and the U.S. and building the bilateral confidence.”

A statement from their families was posted Tuesday on the Web site lauraandeuna.com:

“The families of Laura Ling and Euna Lee are overjoyed by the news of their pardon. We are so grateful to our government: President Obama, Secretary Clinton and the U.S. State Department for their dedication to and hard work on behalf of American citizens. We especially want to thank President Bill Clinton for taking on such an arduous mission and Vice President Al Gore for his tireless efforts to bring Laura and Euna home.”

The CNN report mentions that Clinton was carrying a message from Obama. That assertion was denied by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs earlier Tuesday.

Here are the bios of the two reporters.

“It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists,” former UN ambassador John Bolton told Agence France Presse when asked about Bill Clinton’s trip to secure the release of the journalists. Bolton had served under George W. Bush presidency. “I think this is a very bad signal because it does exactly what we always try and avoid doing with terrorists, or with rogue states in general, and that’s encouraging their bad behavior,” Bolton said acdording to the press report.

The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed its gratitude concerning the release of the pair.

“Kim Jong-il issued an order … granting a special pardon to the two American journalists who had been sentenced to hard labor,” the BBC and other news outlets quoted the official Korean Central News Agency as saying. On June 8, a court sentenced the Current TV journalists to 12 years’ labor for illegally entering North Korea and committing unspecified “hostile acts” while reporting near the border with China.

“We welcome the news that Euna Lee and Laura Ling will be pardoned and released after more than four months in detention,” said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. “This has been a long and complex process given the situation on the Korean peninsula. We thank former President Clinton for his intervention and we are grateful that the North Korean authorities have responded to appeals for clemency. We know that the families of these two reporters will be relieved to have their loved ones back home.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the AP that he is applauding the pardon of two California journalists sentenced to 12 years of labor in prison in North Korea.

Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he and his wife, Maria Shriver, are joining all Californians in celebrating the pending release of the pair. He wished them a safe return home.

Several sources on the Chinese side of the frontier told Reporters sans frontières, a journalist-advocacy agency based in Paris, that the North Korean border guards might have crossed the Tumen (the river that forms the border) while Ling and Lee were filming on the Chinese bank. In a documentary made by South Korean journalists called “On the border,” North Korean border guards can be seen crossing the river and landing on the Chinese side without running into any problems. Another piece of evidence that might support this theory is the fact that their Chinese interpreter was not arrested and is back in Beijing.

They were working on a documentary to expose the trafficking of women by North Koreans.

South Korean journalists in the United States seem pleased about Euna Lee and Laura Ling’s release. But they are asking a bigger question: How about the approximately 300 South Koreans the North has been holding as hostages for years?

“It is very difficult to free our own South Korean hostages because North Korea intentionally treats our government differently. We are not America,” Jong Hoon Kim, editor of Korea Daily in Atlanta told New America Media’s Anthony Advincula and Eunji Jang.

The American government, Kim added, is willing to make negotiations. “South Korean President Lee Myung Bak is conservative. He doesn’t want to negotiate. Under the Obama administration, American politics is more democratic and open to peace talks.”

The result, Kim said, is that hundreds of South Korean hostages languish in North Korean prisons. These hostages – the most recent of whom include two fishermen – have been taken in small groups over time and stand little chance of release.

Albert Hong, reporter for Korea Daily in Washington, D.C., said that North Korea wants to show the world that its government can make a deal with America, the most powerful country in the world.

“North Korea is in dire situation, politically. They have the missiles and the world doesn’t like it. So a negotiation (like the release of the American journalists) could alleviate the pressure,” said Hong.

North Korean President Kim Jong Il has pardoned and ordered the release of two U.S. journalists, state-run news agency KCNA said Wednesday.

Reports are circulating on Twitter that the pair will leave North Korea on Clinton’s private plane. But FOX News said that Clinton has already left the country and that it is not clear if the pair are on the plane.

Former President Bill Clinton has left North Korea with his party, state media reported, after he negotiated for the release of two jailed American journalists.

The official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch that Clinton and others left early Wednesday by plane. The report did not specify whether the two American journalists pardoned by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il were among those who left Pyongyang on the flight.

Kim issued the “special pardon” for the reporters after Clinton made a surprise visit to the communist nation to negotiate their release Tuesday morning. The release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sign of North Korea’s “humanitarian and peaceloving policy,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.

Experts had speculated that Kim was looking for a photo op as a concession with the United States. That photo op, seen at left, came at the expense of a past president, not the current one.

CNN ran this report, which detailed some of the negotiations:

“Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it,” the [North Korean] news agency reported. “Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view.

“The meetings had candid and in-depth discussions on the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. in a sincere atmosphere and reached a consensus of views on seeking a negotiated settlement of them.”

The report said Clinton then conveyed a message from President Obama “expressing profound thanks for this and reflecting views on ways of improving the relations between the two countries.”

It added, “The measure taken to release the American journalists is a manifestation of the DPRK’s humanitarian and peace-loving policy.

“The DPRK visit of Clinton and his party will contribute to deepening the understanding between the DPRK and the U.S. and building the bilateral confidence.”

A statement from their families was posted Tuesday on the Web site lauraandeuna.com:

“The families of Laura Ling and Euna Lee are overjoyed by the news of their pardon. We are so grateful to our government: President Obama, Secretary Clinton and the U.S. State Department for their dedication to and hard work on behalf of American citizens. We especially want to thank President Bill Clinton for taking on such an arduous mission and Vice President Al Gore for his tireless efforts to bring Laura and Euna home.”

The CNN report mentions that Clinton was carrying a message from Obama. That assertion was denied by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs earlier Tuesday.

Here are the bios of the two reporters.

“It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists,” former UN ambassador John Bolton told Agence France Presse when asked about Bill Clinton’s trip to secure the release of the journalists. Bolton had served under George W. Bush presidency. “I think this is a very bad signal because it does exactly what we always try and avoid doing with terrorists, or with rogue states in general, and that’s encouraging their bad behavior,” Bolton said acdording to the press report.

The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed its gratitude concerning the release of the pair.

“Kim Jong-il issued an order … granting a special pardon to the two American journalists who had been sentenced to hard labor,” the BBC and other news outlets quoted the official Korean Central News Agency as saying. On June 8, a court sentenced the Current TV journalists to 12 years’ labor for illegally entering North Korea and committing unspecified “hostile acts” while reporting near the border with China.

“We welcome the news that Euna Lee and Laura Ling will be pardoned and released after more than four months in detention,” said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. “This has been a long and complex process given the situation on the Korean peninsula. We thank former President Clinton for his intervention and we are grateful that the North Korean authorities have responded to appeals for clemency. We know that the families of these two reporters will be relieved to have their loved ones back home.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the AP that he is applauding the pardon of two California journalists sentenced to 12 years of labor in prison in North Korea.

Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he and his wife, Maria Shriver, are joining all Californians in celebrating the pending release of the pair. He wished them a safe return home.

Several sources on the Chinese side of the frontier told Reporters sans frontières, a journalist-advocacy agency based in Paris, that the North Korean border guards might have crossed the Tumen (the river that forms the border) while Ling and Lee were filming on the Chinese bank. In a documentary made by South Korean journalists called “On the border,” North Korean border guards can be seen crossing the river and landing on the Chinese side without running into any problems. Another piece of evidence that might support this theory is the fact that their Chinese interpreter was not arrested and is back in Beijing.

They were working on a documentary to expose the trafficking of women by North Koreans.

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz this morning examines the value of President Obama’s news conferences both from the perspective of the major networks and their overall news value. He also looks at how Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel went to the top of the ladder to persuade the networks to broadcast the most recent event.

Rather than calling ABC, the White House chief of staff phoned Bob Iger, chief executive of parent company Disney. Instead of contacting NBC, Emanuel went to Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric. He also spoke with Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, the company spun off from Viacom.

Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm-twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network time for his boss in six months. But network executives have been privately complaining to White House officials that they cannot afford to keep airing these sessions in the current economic downturn.

The networks “absolutely” feel pressured, says Paul Friedman, CBS’s senior vice president: “It’s an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used.”

But are the events worth it to the networks?

The financial stakes are considerable. ABC, CBS and NBC have given up as much as $40 million in advertising revenue to carry this year’s East Room events. “We lose more than $3 million a show,” Moonves told Mediaweek. The Fox broadcast network has declined to carry the last two Obama sessions.

Every president exercises considerable control over his encounters with reporters, picking on selected journalists and deflecting questions he doesn’t like. But Obama’s discursive style has also tended to depress the news value of the sessions.

He began the last one with an eight-minute opening statement. His answer to the first question, including a follow-up, lasted more than seven minutes. All told, the lengthy responses allowed time for only 10 reporters to be recognized. And Obama’s professorial style of explaining policy at length, rather than offering punchy sound bites, may serve him well, but rarely yields dramatic headlines.

One result: The audience is gradually dwindling. The last presser drew 24 million viewers, a significant number but a 50 percent decline from Obama’s first such event in February.