The Determiner Weekly And The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog Make President Obama's Media Access List For Press Conferences

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman

Posted Thursday, October 29, 2009
(White House and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)

By Kathy Wray Coleman
(Editor of The Determiner Weekly and The
Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and
Media Network)

The Determiner Weekly and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network have made the cut for President Obama's media list, which gives access to top level officials at the White House via telephone press conferences, including White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
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“We look forward to working with America's first African-American President and his media staff and others to provide worthy news across the Internet and elsewhere particularly to Ohioans since Ohio is a pivotal state where no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio,” said Coleman, editor of The Determiner Weekly and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network.

During last year's Democratic Primary Coleman nabbed the one-on-one interview with Obama. She wrote some 16 articles on both the primary and the general presidential elections that were published in the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's most prominent Black press with distributions in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio.

Coleman said she missed the press conference of today scheduled by telephone at 1:20 p.m. with White House Small Business Administration Administrator Karen Mills, which followed President Obama’s remarks on the impact of health care reform on small businesses. Mills discussed with regional reporters the steps the Obama Administration has taken to help small businesses expand and create jobs as well as the need for a health care reform plan that gives small businesses the ability to control health insurance costs.

“Believe or not I pulled the press release from spam not knowing that we had been added to the president's press venue,” said Coleman, while adding that as a journalist she does not get star struck by politicians.

“We give news from a Black perspective but we keep neutrality in mind,” she said. “I was not jailed in Cuyahoga County last year in August during the height of the Democratic Primary, stripped naked, taken in a room for questioning, and then released four days later without charges for nothing.”

Coleman said that she and her staff are in the process of examining Obama's 2000-page Health Care Reform Bill and will subsequently provide a synopsis as to its potential benefits to the Black community and others. She said further that analysis of proposed congressional legislation to shield journalists from court orders to provide sources in criminal trials will also be addressed.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has previously determined that the First Amendment does not protect journalists and their sources relative to criminal proceedings, though several states including Ohio have a Reporter's Shield Law for such protection,” said Coleman. “We want congressional legislation that shields all applicable reporters in this country from being jailed and harassed because they refuse to give up their sources,” she said.