Incestuous relationship

Newsweek's Embedded Obama Campaign Reporter Joins Obama Administration

By Tim Graham
The revolving door between the media and Team Obama continues to rotate. Some journalists on the campaign trail were infatuated with Obama, and that’s certainly true of the Newsweek reporter who covered Obama in-depth (with the promise that nothing he learned would be revealed until after the election). Philip Klein on The American Spectator’s blog reported:
Daren Briscoe, a Newsweek correspondent who was embedded with Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, has taken a job with the Obama administration, according to an email sent to a listserv of his classmates at the Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
The email, written by Time reporter and fellow Columbia grad Jay Newton-Small, said Briscoe would be serving as deputy associate director of public affairs for the Office of National Drug Control Policy as of Monday.
"Despite his multiple basketball games with our commander-in-chief, he always brought a skeptical eye to his work and in conversations about the candidate," Newton-Small wrote the email.
Briscoe's campaign reporting helped provide the basis for Newsweek's book on the campaign, A Long Time Coming.
When the campaign was over, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham told the story of how Briscoe went silently into the Obama campaign bubble:
On the trail with Obama, Daren understood early on that, come what may, it was a historic campaign. "As Obama crisscrossed Iowa -- the linchpin for his then fanciful-sounding 'early state strategy' – in December of 2007," Daren says, "I found myself at an event, wondering what an all-white, elderly crowd of rural Iowa farmers would make of this skinny black guy – until I noticed how many faded pairs of overalls and worn straw hats already had OBAMA buttons pinned to them."
Then, in March 2008, when clips of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright crying "God damn America" were playing endlessly, Daren wondered whether Obama's candidacy would survive – until he watched Obama's subtle speech on race in Philadelphia. Daren's father, born and raised in the pre-civil-rights South, later told him: "That's the first time I've ever heard anybody explain how I feel." Daren's dad is 69 years old.
Briscoe will work for Obama "drug czar" Gil Kerlikowske, who was sworn in on June 19.

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My list of twelve who have spun through the revolving door between journalism and the Obama campaign and/or Obama administration. (Unless otherwise linked, in my early May post you can learn more about those involved in each job switch: “Third CNN Staffer Joins Obama's Team, As Does ABC Vet; Revolving Door Up to Ten”):
Warren Bass: Washington Post deputy editor (of the Outlook section) > adviser to United Nations Ambassador Dr. Susan Rice.
Daren Briscoe: Newsweek Washington correspondent > Deputy Associate Director of Public Affairs for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Jay Carney: Time magazine Washington bureau chief > Assistant to the Vice President and Director of Communications for Vice President Joe Biden.
Linda Douglass: ABC News Washington correspondent (previously with CBS News) > senior strategist and senior campaign spokesperson on the road for the Obama campaign, now Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services and leading spokesman for Obama's health reform.
Kate Albright-Hanna: CNN producer > director of “new media” (online video) for the Obama campaign, “content lead” for the Obama transition Web site.
Peter Gosselin: Los Angeles Times Washington correspondent > speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
Sasha Johnson: CNN senior political producer > Press Secretary at the Department of Transportation.
Beverley Lumpkin: Justice Department correspondent for ABC News > Press Secretary at the Justice Department.
Aneesh Raman: CNN Middle East correspondent > worked in communications for the Obama campaign.
Vijay Ravindran: Chief Technology Officer for Catalist, a voter database provider which worked for the Obama campaign > Chief Digital Officer and Senior Vice President of the Washington Post Company.
Rick Weiss: Washington Post science reporter > communications director and senior policy strategist at the White House Office of Science and Technology.
Jill Zuckman: Chicago Tribune Washington correspondent > Director of Public Affairs for the Department of Transportation.
—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center