It’s no surprise that the New York Times and Washington Post are fierce competitors. And it has been reported that the Times has yet to score a coveted interview with President-elect Barack Obama since Election Day.
So it was, then, that a tinge of bitterness was apparent in a dispatch from Times reporter Helene Cooper, who was the pool reporter covering Obama Thursday.
After the president-elect pulled up to — you guessed it — the Post for one of those precious interviews, Cooper wrote in her e-mailed report: “After three and a half hours at his transition office, PEOTUS obama took another 6 minute ride through washington, arriving at 157 pm at the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L street that houses the washington post. Around 100 people — Post reporters perhaps? — awaited PEOTUS’s arrival, cheering and bobbing their coffee cups. Pool is holding in a van outside, while Mr obama does his washington post interview, and will exercise enormous restraint by ending report before saying what really thinks about this turn of events.”
Keeping the catfight alive, a Post spokesperson told Politico: “There’s no reason to think there were any reporters cheering. … a lot of people who work in the Post building don’t work in the Post newsroom.”
But photos that slipped out and the reports of newsroom insiders show at least that Obama’s visit was a major distraction for the Post’s journalists.
