Primetime phobia - Obama skips major papers: No NYT, WaPo, WSJ, USA

(Politico).During President Obama's second East Room news conference, he took questions from 13 reporters over about an hour.

But in quite a departure from the first presser -- and White House protocol -- Obama skipped over the nation's top newspapers. Indeed, there were no questions from the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or USA Today. That might not sit well with the already insecure newspaper industry.

In exchange, Obama opened things up to a wider variety of outlets, including Spanish-language television, a military news outlet, and black-oriented media. It's another example of the White House going over the typical Washington press corps "filter."

So the only newspapers that got a question were the Washington Times, Stars and Stripes, and POLITICO -- although the latter is known by many, especially outside DC, as primarily a website.

DrudgeReport adds: "SOURCE: Reporters were told in advance if president was going to call on them. Senior Administration Officials notified reporters from Stars & Stripes, Univision and other news outlets that they should have question ready. Several reporters moved up in assigned seats as result".