Anyone who works in the news media should be repelled by this admission from Politico:

President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.

Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated. Instead, the mastery mostly flows from a White House that has taken old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting). And it’s an equal opportunity strategy: Media across the ideological spectrum are left scrambling for access.

The results are transformational. With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly. And future presidents from both parties will undoubtedly copy and expand on this approach. …

The frustrated Obama press corps neared rebellion this past holiday weekend when reporters and photographers were not even allowed onto the Floridian National GolfClub, where Obama was golfing. That breached the tradition of the pool “holding” in the clubhouse and often covering — and even questioning — the president on the first and last holes.

Obama boasted Thursday during a Google+ Hangout from the White House: “This is the most transparent administration in history.” The people who cover him day to day see it very differently.

“The way the president’s availability to the press has shrunk in the last two years is a disgrace,” said ABC News White House reporter Ann Compton, who has covered every president back to Gerald R. Ford. “The president’s day-to-day policy development — on immigration, on guns — is almost totally opaque to the reporters trying to do a responsible job of covering it. There are no readouts from big meetings he has with people from the outside, and many of them aren’t even on his schedule. This is different from every president I covered. This White House goes to extreme lengths to keep the press away.”

One authentically new technique pioneered by the Obama White House is extensive government creation of content (photos of the president, videos of White House officials, blog posts written by Obama aides), which can then be instantly released to the masses through social media. They often include footage unavailable to the press.

This may produce a yawn from those who are not in the news media. It shouldn’t. If the news media was doing its proper job and following its historic role, people in the media would be doing the old-fashioned work of journalism — pestering politicians, and when they refuse to talk, cultivating sources — instead of whining about how the Obama administration won’t play fair with them.

The default position for the news media should be suspicion of every elected official, and the more power they have, the more suspicious the media should be. The past 100 years of this country, and probably before that, demonstrate that politicians will do anything to keep power once they get it. Remember that phrase about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable? Politicians are the most comfortable of all.

For those in the media too young to remember, this is what the media should be doing:

ABC-TV reporter Sam Donaldson was famously known for walking right past the line of rudeness to presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Donaldson’s best line probably was: “As a political reporter questioning public officials, I say only half facetiously that the only way to avoid being seen as a partisan is to be equally vicious to everyone.”

This paragraph, however, is precious:

Conservatives assume a cozy relationship between this White House and the reporters who cover it. Wrong. Many reporters find Obama himself strangely fearful of talking with them and often aloof and cocky when he does. They find his staff needlessly stingy with information and thin-skinned about any tough coverage. He gets more-favorable-than-not coverage because many staffers are fearful of talking to reporters, even anonymously, and some reporters inevitably worry access or the chance of a presidential interview will decrease if they get in the face of this White House.

So what? The media has been in the tank for Obama since well before he became the least qualified person to become president in this nation’s history. The media generally is in the tank for Democrats because they agree with them, particularly in Democrats’ antipathy toward business. (Reporters have a low opinion of two groups of their coworkers — (1) their bosses, and (2) people on the business side, including account representatives.) The media hasn’t been reporting about the crappy state of the economy, as demonstrated by historically high unemployment numbers (which are only half the actual number of unemployed and underemployed). The media was in the tank for Bill Clinton throughout the ’90s for different reasons — because Clinton reminded them of themselves.

Why are we not hearing, every single day, from every single media outlet that covers Obama, how Obama is ducking the news media? Breitbart’s John Nolte explains:

As we all know, the media are far from helpless; Politico is far from helpless; VandeAllen is far from helpless. Apparently, though, something brought on a wave of shame, and as a response to all this self-revulsion, VendeAllen has decided to craft a public excuse for the media that claims the institution is a victim, not an accomplice.

The truth, however, is that when it really wants something, there’s nothing the media can’t get. All that’s required is coordinated Narrative pressure that says, “Do this, or you will pay a political price.” The media do this all the time … to Republicans. The recipe is simple and startlingly effective:

1. The media decide they want something, like for Mitt Romney to stop criticizing Obama about Libya.

2. The media as a whole coordinate a Narrative that mercilessly whack-a-moles Mitt Romney every time he brings up Libya.

3. Mitt Romney shuts up about Libya.

Another example:

1. The media decide they want something, like to help Obama win re-election.

2. At the very same time the media choose to ignore the scandals around high-profile Democrat Jesse Jackson Jr., they decide to hang around Mitt Romney’s neck one stupid statement about abortion made by some nobody-Republican in Missouri.

3. Using this statement, the media as a whole coordinate a months-long War-On-Women Narrative that mercilessly punishes Romney and the GOP for something they didn’t say and immediately repudiated.

Through the power of a coordinated Narrative, time and again, we’ve seen the media get what they want, when they want. What we never see, though, is this Narrative turned against Obama. But I can’t begin to count how many times this Narrative has been used to protect Obama. …

The thing is this, though, it’s all a ruse, a scam, a hustle, a racket. If the media admit they are part of the Democratic Party, that’s the day they begin to lose power. The shield of objectivity must be protected at all costs, even if it means having VandeAllen hold the media up for ridicule as a weak, helpless victim. But all you need do is look around to see the truth. …

Millions are suffering in Obama’s failed economy, but the media are talking instead about the divisive social issues Obama wants to talk about (gun control, immigration).

Four Americans died in Libya; the unanswered questions are legion. But it’s those who demand answers that feel the power of the media, not those who refuse to answer.

The media have plenty of power to get what it wants from Obama. But what the media want is to protect their lover; even a lover who treats them like the prostitutes they are.

Once upon a time, reporters internally rated themselves by how much politicians hated them. That was before journalists wanted to be liked. If you want to be liked, get a dog.