David Shaw, in the LAT (Feb. 15, 2004):

The Bush administration has, after all, been more effective at throttling the mainstream news media than any administration in memory.

That may seem a churlish observation a mere week after the president sat for a one-hour interview with Tim Russert on"Meet the Press." But with every network host and anchor having angled for the interview for months, it was Bush who decided when, with whom and in which venue he'd talk.

That's not an unusual exercise of the presidential prerogative. But it's evidence anew of how successful and determined this administration has been in controlling media access.

I know, I know. In every presidency of the past 30 or 40 years, the news media have complained that they didn't have enough access to the president, that he was determined to go over their heads and speak directly to the public, and that he and his staff wanted to talk about only what they wanted to talk about, not what the reporters thought they should talk about.

In virtually every case, the reporters covering the president — whichever president it was — grumbled that relations between the media and this particular occupant of the White House were the worst in the history of the republic (or at least the worst since Nixon, the longtime, all-time, Watergate/plumbers/enemies list/18 1/2-minute-gap/"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore" bête noire of the media).

But it seems to me that a confluence of circumstances and events (the tragedy of 9/11, the public's growing disdain for the media, the growth of alternate news forms and forums, the Bush administration's scornful attitude toward journalists) have made the traditional media more compliant — and have enabled the Bushites to ride roughshod over them.

The president's declining poll numbers and growing partisan criticism of and public skepticism over his rationale for war in Iraq may change that. The media may feel emboldened to challenge Bush more aggressively, and he may feel compelled to be more cooperative — as witness his"Meet the Press" appearance.

But so far, the Bush administration has been especially successful at stonewalling the media, keeping the White House team"on message" and all but abandoning the traditional presidential press conference.

Through Tuesday, Bush had conducted only 11 solo press conferences. Other presidents had far more by the same point in their first terms, says Martha Joynt Kumar, a professor of political science at Towson University in Maryland, who's writing a book on White House communications. Dwight D. Eisenhower had 78, Lyndon B. Johnson 79, Jimmy Carter 53, Ronald Reagan 21, George H.W. Bush 72 and Bill Clinton 40. Even Nixon had 23, more than twice as many as George W.

Modern technology makes it much easier these days for a president to avoid the traditional news media outlets and forums. Clinton was only partly joking when he said at a radio and television correspondents dinner during his first term:

"You know why I can stiff you on the press conferences? Because Larry King liberated me from you by giving me to the American people directly."

Today the president can use any number of Bush-friendly venues to get his unfiltered message across. Who needs a White House press conference or Dan Rather — or even Larry King, for that matter — when you have Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Matt Drudge?