I want more info. This is quite outrageous if true.

I agree with what terratogen is saying in the thread.

There are contexts when you must separate the function of collecting information, from the commentary aspect inherent in presenting it. This was clearly one of those situations. He wasn't trying to collect information, he was trying to make commentary. It was very two-faced.

What we should be doing, is striving to get the candidates into more situations where they can be confronted. I like to see how they respond to this type of thing. It often says volumes about their character.

However, in situations like this one, there are a metric fuckton of reporters wanting to ask questions. It is necessary to accommodate as many of them as possible. The root cause of this guy getting kicked out was that he was obstructing that process. I don't think "ambush" is a good tactic.

Reporters often have to ask questions many different ways, at many different times, in order to get real answers. That's part of the challenge. The other part, is being able to present what you get the way you want it. Be it as objectively as possible, or embedded with commentary, bias, or a certain world view.

We can make many well grounded arguments that the public discourse is broken.. Regardless of that, the concept is still fundamentally broken that people who have grievances can voice them by obstructing the ability of the entity they have grievances with to share their message.

Large press conference situations are chaotic logistical nightmares. They are very far from ideal for any kind of real dialog. However, we are stuck with that framework for a large number of things. The approach taken by this guy doesn't achieve anything, except maybe a dancing session in front of his own choir.

This hurts their changes of getting any real dialog with a candidate, because it makes them look like complete asshats to anyone who could/would get them access. It also hurts the chances of other new online media entities from getting access to these type of conferences. They had a chance, and they blew it for many more people then just themselves.

"unprofessional" conduct leads to less access to people who don't quality as professionals. Using tactics like this causes the divide between the mainstream professional media and new online user-generated media to grow wider and harder to traverse.

Asshats asking 'tough questions' of canidates press staff