White House press office: "we withhold gossip"
White House's tight grip on news and the news media analyzed in this New York Times story:
Where Mr. Clinton had given 73 news conferences at this point in his presidency — most jointly with foreign leaders and other officials — Mr. Bush has given 36, said Martha Joynt Kumar, a professor at Towson University who tracks the White House communications operation. George Herbert Walker Bush had given 61 in his first 21 months.
"The press has plenty of access," Mr. Fleischer said. "I don't think it's a matter of withholding information — we withhold gossip."
..."I think Ari goes into the briefing with a message that he intends to deliver," said Campbell Brown, an NBC News White House correspondent, "and what questions are asked is almost irrelevant."
[And the exchange is often confrontational.] In the best-known example, Bennett Roth, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, after asking a question about the president's daughters, was warned by Mr. Fleischer that it had been "noted in the building."