White House botches press access to ceremony with emir of Qatar
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A group of photographers from prominent news organizations on Tuesday boycotted a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House during the visit of the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
Part of the proceedings included the signing of an agreement to buy jets from Boeing — an event that the White House, presumably, would like to publicize to the greatest extent possible.
Thing is, a previously released schedule indicated that the signing session — which also involves Qatari entities and Chevron-Phillips, General Electric and Raytheon — was closed to the media. Apparently the White House decided that good business news might benefit from photographic diffusion. Accordingly, the White House proposed allowing one photographer into the event, which was crowded with about 50 expected attendees.
No dice, responded the photographers: You either get the whole pool or nothing at all.
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