Journalists Urged Not To Become "Lapdogs" For Obama

January 14, 2009 7:39 p.m. EST

Chicago, IL (AHN) - Some journalists are raising concerns that the media is not holding president-elect Barack Obama up to proper media standards, allowing Obama to "pre-pick" which journalists will ask him questions at news conferences.

Sun-Times columnist and long-time Chicago journalist Carol Marin says that many journalists "don't even bother raising their hands" to be called upon, and instead are allowing a "corralling of the press."

According to Marin, many in the press corps "don't even bother raising their hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day."

Insisting that this sort of lapdog media behavior would never have been acceptable during Bush's administration, Marin is urging journalists not to allow themselves to be awed into submission by the media's fixation with Barack Obama.