To evade Obama censorship, press corps will try this thing called Google to send pool reports

The fact that the Obama White House tries to censor press reports is surely the most important angle to this story, but in commenting about it, I really can't get past the ineptness of the White House press corps that is necessary to even make such meddling possible.

Pool reports are basically this: Since it's implausible for a massive throng of White House reporters to stalk Obama everywhere he goes, a small "pool" of reporters is selected to do so on any given day, and their reports are then made available to those who stay behind. That's simple enough. The problem comes with the method of distribution. Up until now, the pool reporters submit their reports to the White House press office, which then e-mails them to the rest of the reporters. This of this in broad terms. The press submits its reports to the government for distribution to the rest of the press. I know that makes it sound more ominous than it probably turns out to be in practice most of the time, but lately the White House has been doing the very thing the most paranoid among us would fear - trying to censor the reports. It's mostly been over trivial things, but in principle it's something the press cannot and should not accept. So why were they ever relying on the White House press office to distribute the reports in the first place? Do these people not have their own e-mail accounts? Have they never heard of Google Groups? Apparently the White House press corps has now decided to make a valiant attempt to join the 21st Century:

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Pool reports — those summaries of the president’s public appearances that go to the news media at large and are used in countless news stories — are filed by a rotating group of journalists whose work is intended to be free of content changes by the White House.

The pool journalists, however, must submit their reports to the White House press office, which distributes them via e-mail to hundreds of news organizations and others. The White House maintains the list of recipients. Reporters have complained that the Obama White House exploits its role as distributor to demand changes in pool reports and that the press office has delayed or refused to distribute some reports until they are amended to officials’ satisfaction. But now, some journalists are sharing their White House reporting using Google Groups — the digital service that allows registered users to receive and send information within a closed circle. In an early test of the supplemental system, journalists shared pool information about President Obama’s trip to Chicago this month. The system has been used for “advisories,” such as where the pool is assembling, when another pool report will be issued or whether a correction is in the works.

This is just astonishing. The media would have us believe that those who cover the White House are the "best and the brightest" among their profession, and they don't even know how to set up a distribution system - with all the technology available today - to make their work available to each other without depending on the White House itself to hit send? And yet this really follows a pattern where the media are concerned. I recall 10 years ago attending the grand unveiling of several newspapers' shiny new printing presses - convinced as they were that better ink that would "make photos pop" on the printed page was the key to their futures. As recently as eight years ago when I was still working in public relations, these same people would complain if you sent them a photo attachment with a press release because, "it's a hassle." A photo attachment? Seriously? If you sometimes wonder how a completely unqualified candidate like Obama could get elected in the first place, consider: The people most of the nation trusts to inform them about what's happening at the White House are lazy and dumb. Maybe they were able to work the politics of their dinosaur media companies into this plumb assignment, but they can't figure out how to do basic things most of us do every day, and they rely on the government to do it for them. No wonder they think the rest of us should rely on the government for everything. Google Groups! Wow! How forward-thinking and innovative! Facepalm.