​Obama Only Took Women Reporters' Questions at Year-End Press Conference

Yesterday, President Barack Obama held the annual end-of-the-year press conference, answering questions from the Sony hack (he called the decision to pull The Interview a “mistake”) to the “debate” over police reforms in light of the Mike Brown and Eric Garner decisions. All in all it seemed like a normal press conference, except for one thing. He fielded questions from eight female reporters and zero males.

Obama also ignored major news networks, hearing from from Politico, Washington Post, American Urban Radio, Bloomberg BNA and others. According to CBS News’ White House correspondent Mark Knoller, TV reporters were informed in advance that the press conference would focus on reporters “not regularly called on” at press conferences. After the event White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest stated, via Time:

“The fact is, there are many women from a variety of news organizations who day-in and day-out do the hard work of covering the President of the United States…As the questioner list started to come together, we realized that we had a unique opportunity to highlight that fact at the President’s closely watched, end of the year news conference.”

In the press conference, Obama addressed the “legacy of a troubled racial past” and its role in the income gap between white and black American families. And he also dropped a wonderful gem—”James Flacco.”