By agreeing to join MSNBC’s Chris Matthews this week to discuss the “news of the day,” President Obama once again revealed his love for quick one-on-one interviews with a friendly media.
The president’s noted preference for answering questions posed by media figures not known for being particular critical of his administration — a preference that dates back to his earliest days as commander in chief — continues even after he has sustained years of criticism from a press that questions his apparent aversion to the traditional setting of crowded and often hostile press conference.
By failing to offer more pressers, the Obama administration appears “determined to conceal its workings from the press, and by extension, the public,” Susan Milligan wrote this year in a Columbia Journalism Review report titled “The President and the Press.”
Obama’s two-term predecessors, former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, were much more open to offering press conferences, with the former holding a combined 210 regular and solo pressers and the latter holding 193, according to data compiled by the American Presidency Project.
In contrast, since being elected in 2008, Obama has held a combined 124 regular and solo press conferences, according to the same data set.
Even George H. W. Bush, who served only one term, participated in more press conferences than Obama, clocking in with a total of 137 (of course, Bush senior was also a wartime president).
However, when it comes to one-on-one interviews with media, Obama blows away all of his competition, according to statistics compiled by Towson University professor Martha Joynt Kumar.
As of January of this year, Obama has partaken in 872 sit-downs with various media figures, with some of the discussions being brief and others extended, according to Kumar.
Clinton left office with 239 one-on-one media interviews under his belt, while George W. Bush left with 333.
Even though Obama has participated in literally hundreds of one-on-one interviews, some media critics question the newsworthiness and usefulness of his preferred medium.
The president’s Q&As tend to be unremarkable and free of any real new information as he generally uses his position to “control the length of the interview (short) as well as the length of his responses (long),” according to the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple.
As such, real news “only rarely comes tumbling out of these sessions,” Wemple wrote.
And though Obama has spoken with a few critical hosts, including Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, many of his interviews, which are generally only a few minutes long, have been with people who are either notoriously sympathetic towards his administration or wholly apolitical.
In the last three years, for example, Obama has done interviews with YouTube “celebrities,” Vice, BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, “Between Two Ferns” host Zach Galifianakis, Re/code, Vox, the “Wire” creator David Simon, Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert, comedian Ellen DeGeneres, BET, the New Republic, fusion, WebMD and AARP to name just a few.
He has also participated in Q&A sessions on social media platforms, including Tumblr and Google Hangouts.
Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in January that the toughest interview Obama submitted to during his 2012 reelection campaign came from fake newsman Jon Stewart, indicating perhaps just how easy the president’s hundreds of one-on-ones tend to be.
“If you look back at 2012 and the series of interviews the sitting president of the United States gave, probably the toughest interview he had was with Jon Stewart,” Carney said in reference to the late night comedian known for being particularly sympathetic towards the president.
“Probably the most substantive, challenging interview Barack Obama had in the election year was with the anchor of The Daily Show.”
