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Ryan Chittum takes a look at yesterday’s sit-down between President Obama and five bloggers and concludes that the bloggers “didn’t exactly cover themselves with glory.”

I guess that’s true. But I wouldn’t really blame the bloggers. Some of their questions were good, some were lame, and some were in between. But who’s done better? Who can do better? Pretty much any big time politician — and Obama’s as big time as they come — has heard every question before and knows exactly how to answer them. They filibuster, they distract, they offer up platitudes, and they move on. There’s pretty much zero chance of anyone getting anything newsworthy out of a guy like Obama unless he feels like making news. This is just life in our modern media-saturated age.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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