Chuck Todd, Chief White House Correspondent for NBC News, called the Obama White House "very controlling" and "selectively secretive" Friday morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Joe Scarborough said that there is "a great frustration" amongst White House reporters because of the White House’s seemingly "openly contemptuous" attitude towards them.
Todd confirmed Scarborough’s remarks, saying: "They’re just very controlling… it is amazing to me that this White House does get obsessed when something ‘leaks.' They seem to be sometimes more worried ‘Well, who did it?’, ‘How did this get out?’, rather than dealing with the story itself…"
He added that the White House often takes advantage of technology to go around the press "in a way that we’ve never seen any other White House do…"
"When you take that, you take the access limitations, you throw in the aggressive attempts to prosecute leakers, and I think it paints the larger picture that Jill Abramson was trying to point which was: Boy, these guys are controlling , these guys are secretive. But I would go to your point- they’re selectively secretive. Obviously, they’re not as secretive when they don’t think it’s a political benefit."