His feud with an unnamed official, first reported in Politico, which said Mr. Woodward clearly saw the administration’s choice of words “as a veiled threat,” initially drew cheers from many conservative commentators and bewilderment from many Washington reporters who wondered whether Mr. Woodward was being a tad oversensitive.
In an interview later on Thursday, Mr. Woodward emphasized that he had not said he felt threatened. “I never said it was a threat,” he said, but added that he still had concerns about how the administration handled criticism. “We live in a world where they don’t like to be challenged, particularly when the political stakes are so high,” he said.
The dust-up started last Friday, when The Washington Post published an op-ed article by Mr. Woodward that said Mr. Obama was “moving the goal posts” by insisting that a substitute for the Congressionally mandated automatic spending cuts include new revenue. “That was not the deal he made” back in 2011, Mr. Woodward wrote.
The staff of the House speaker, John A. Boehner, circulated the article to reporters immediately. By Sunday, when the article appeared in print, the headline of Politico’s widely read Playbook newsletter read “Woodward v. White House!”
On Wednesday Mr. Woodward attracted streams of new conservative friends when he said that an unnamed senior White House official had yelled at him “for about a half-hour” and warned that he would “regret this.” After Politico published his comments under the headline “Woodward at War,” Twitter lighted up with vigorous debate.
To some Republican politicians and conservative activists, Mr. Woodward’s assertions were new evidence of their belief that the Obama administration exerts tremendous pressure on a mostly cowed news media. Representative Steve Stockman, Republican of Texas, said in a statement, “Even Bob Woodward accuses Obama of ‘madness.’ ” The Fox News host Steve Doocy defended Mr. Woodward and said, “This White House is one of the most thin-skinned White Houses ever.”
But in the worlds of politics and journalism, a consensus was forming around the suggestion — supported by people close to the White House — that Mr. Woodward had overreacted.
“Arguing with press aides and senior officials” might as well be part of the job description for White House correspondents.
“In fairness to the White House, the First Amendment applies to them as well,” said Ed Henry, the chief White House correspondent for Fox News.
As reporters badgered the White House for comments about whether a threat had been conveyed, details about the discussion between Mr. Woodward and his source began to leak out. BuzzFeed reported that the official was Gene Sperling, the director of Mr. Obama’s National Economic Council.
On Thursday morning Politico published their e-mail exchange, which seemed remarkably polite. Mr. Sperling started by saying: “I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. My bad.” He later said “perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here” and “as a friend, I think you will regret staking that claim.” Mr. Woodward responded: “You do not ever have to apologize to me. You get wound up because you are making your points and you believe them.”
Mr. Woodward would not say whether this White House was more sensitive about being challenged than the past administrations he has covered. But he said, “I can’t recall an instance when somebody in the White House said I was going to ‘regret staking out’ a position that they disagreed with, but were not that factually challenging.”
Other veteran reporters said on Thursday, in essence, “We’ve heard worse.” Major Garrett, the chief White House correspondent for CBS, said that he thought the flare-up was “a completely ridiculous story” and that conflict came with the White House beat. “Every reporter knows when a source is angry about something you’re working on, you’re on the right track,” he said. “Just get on with it.”
Jake Tapper, who recently joined CNN from ABC, where he covered the White House, recalled unpleasant conversations with both Republicans and Democrats and called it part of the job. “In my experience,” he said, “neither side has had a premium on tones that may not be soothing, or words that may not be suitable for children.”
Martha Joynt Kumar, a political scientist at Towson University who studies presidential communications, said a truer measure of the relationship between the White House and the press corps was whether journalists were prevented from doing their jobs.
“People are not prevented from reporting,” she said. “There’s no enemies list. That’s the threat that I would see, not a case of Gene Sperling writing the e-mail he did to Bob Woodward.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/business/media/woodward-clashes-with-white-house-and-conservatives-take-note.html?partner=rss&emc=rss