Treasury Department Denies it Tried to Exclude Fox News From Interviews

By GottaLaff

All day we've been going back and forth with anonymous quotes and denials about health care reform and whether the public option is a goner, or as strong as ever.

Now we're seeing a denial about someone Paddy posted about earlier, the subject of a huge media kerfuffle:

Now, Mediaite has learned exclusively that the Treasury Department, who set up the interviews, denies the story.

A Treasury Department spokesperson tells Mediaite the following:

There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing. [...]

Neither Fox News nor the Treasury Department has provided copies of the bulletins that were sent to the press pool, which Politico reports were missing Fox’s name. [...]

TV Newser points out, via an anonymous source, that a decision by the other nets to skip the interviews may have been more financial than principled:

The pool is paid for by and rotates between ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC, allowing each network to do quick interviews using the same camera crew. If the White House were to exclude one of the members, the other networks would have to provide their own crew for the interview.

Meanwhile, my pal Larisa has an interesting take on all of this, as always.

I report, you decide. And so far, I haven't excluded anyone.

We here at TPC have a big tent policy. If only the pole would stay up.