Video: Obama Administration Punishes San Francisco Chronicle Reporter Carla Marinucci for Using Her Flip Video Camera

The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.

White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

The Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci – who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times – pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

She was part of a “print pool” – a limited number of journalists at an event who represent their bigger hoard colleagues – which White House press officials still refer to quaintly as “pen and pad” reporting.

But that’s a pretty Flintstones concept of journalism for an administration that presents itself as the Jetsons. Video is every bit a part of any journalist’s tool kit these days as a functioning pen that doesn’t leak through your pocket.

In fact, Carla and her reporting colleague, Joe Garofoli, founded something called “Shaky Hand Productions” – the semi-pro, sometimes vertiginous use of a Flip or phone camera by Hearst reporters to catch more impromptu or urgent moments during last year’s California gubernatorial race that might otherwise be missed by TV.

The name has become its own brand; often politicians even ask if anyone from Shaky Hand will show at their event. For Carla, Joe and reporters at other Hearst newsrooms where Shaky Hand has taken hold, this was an appropriate dive into use of other media by traditional journalists catering to audiences who expect their news delivered in all modes and manners.

That’s the world we live in and the President of the United States claims to be one of its biggest advocates.

Well, this is just B.S..

By the way, I usually have my digital audio recorder and my Bloggie High Def Video camera in my pocket while at political functions. You never know when something MIGHT happen – as in this case.

But, you know, if the President wants to have a closed press fundraiser, then do not expect the press that are invited NOT to report. How stupid is this? And, then punish the reporter and then her newspaper after the fact.

Remember the saying about people who buy their electrons by the barrel or was it ink?

So what’s up with the White House? We can’t say because neither Press Secretary Jay Carney nor anyone from his staff would speak on the record.

Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was “informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter.” Which shouldn’t be a secret in any case because it’s a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate)and how local citizens get their information.

What’s worse: more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla’s spanking became public. Really? That’s a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free.

But bravery is a challenge, in particular for White House correspondents, most of whom are seasoned and capable journalists. They live a little bit in a gilded cage where they have access to the most powerful man in the world but must obey the rules whether they make sense or not.

CBS News reporter, Mark Knoller, has publicly protested the limited press access to Obama fundraisers, calling the policy “inconsistent.” “It’s no way to do business,” wrote Politico’s Julie Mason, “especially [for] a candidate who prides himself on transparency.”

A 2009 blog by the White House Director of New Media states that “President Obama is committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history.”

Not last week.