Lori Robertson has a long article in American Journalism Review about the relationship between the White House and the press. It covers most of the same ground as chapter 2 of All the President’s Spin, but Robertson’s piece is noteworthy for demonstrating how far the press and DC establishment have come toward acquiesing to the Bush style.

Here’s the most important part of the lede:

The press has been butting up against this brick wall of White House communication policy, and complaining about it, for long enough that stories about on-message, no leaks, no dissent, et cetera, et cetera are becoming a bit clichéd. Some people are tired of hearing about it.

“Stop whining, all you nattering nabobs,” says Stephen Hess, senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institution and a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. “Put yourself in the president’s shoes and say, ‘What’s wrong with the way he did it?’.. That doesn’t mean future presidents will do it.”

Problem is, future presidents may very well do it. Many interviewed for this story suspect–and fear–that this administration’s strategy will be a template for subsequent commanders in chief. An emphasis on tighter news management has been building as each successive administration learns from the previous one. A rigid approach to staying on message and a clampdown on access for reporters and the public have been increasingly used by the executive branch, a trend that began to take shape during the Reagan administration, if not earlier. The current Bush administration has shown that the method can be perfected, with little to no downside for the White House.

…Reporters and open-government advocates speak, often passionately, about why less and less access to the executive branch hurts the public’s right to know. But from an administration’s point of view, what’s the incentive to talk more with the media? Better press coverage? That’s not likely.

There’s “no doubt in my mind, the next administration”–whether it’s Democratic or Republican–“will build on what the Bush administration has been able to do,” says McMasters.

Stop whining? Might as well. The press might want to get used to it.

Robertson asks a number of political operatives and journalists what incentive a future White House would have to not behave like Bush, and the answers she gets are “intangible and hypothetical,” “awfully wispy and idealistic,” and so forth. She offers some suggestions that reporters should go outside normal channels to dig up new information, but that’s about it.

If the conclusion of one of the leading publications in American journalism is that reporters “might want to get used” to being manipulated and stonewalled, we’re in big trouble. The outrage is fading, and being replaced by complacence as journalists realize how little leverage they have. If you want to see how bad things can get, read Paul Farhi’s Washington Post article on the requirement that journalists covering an inaugural ball be followed by a “minder” at all times — a potentially disturbing trend if it continues.

PS The article included updated press conference statistics, which illustrate the vast disparity between Bush and his predecessors – as of December 20, 2004, Bush had held 17 press conferences, compared with 44 by Bill Clinton and 84 by George H.W. Bush at the same point in their terms.

(Disclosure: Robertson quoted me in a recent AJR story on coverage of campaign 2004.)