White House says it makes effort to grant press access to Obama

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday he is sympathetic to growing concerns about press access to President Obama.

“Having been where you are, I understand,” said Carney, a former reporter for Time magazine.

While he said he also understood why “there was a desire” to have a photo of Obama hitting the links with golf pro Tiger Woods, he explained, “The president had some down time. He was playing golf.”

Carney's comments come after the White House press corps fumed when it was denied access to Obama’s golf game with Woods on Sunday.

Carney said the White House is “making an effort to provide access” and that no one received more favorable treatment with the Obama-Woods golf outing.

Carney came to the briefing armed with statistics. He said Obama has had 35 press conferences while former President George W. Bush had only 19 press conferences at this point in his presidency.

The White House spokesman also added that Obama has done 591 interviews since taking office, including 104 with major television networks.

Asked what Obama thinks of access issues, Carney replied, “He deputizes me to have that reaction.”

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RNC chairman, in outreach effort, to powwow with black leaders in Atlanta

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus will meet with black community leaders in Atlanta, Ga. on Thursday to discuss how the GOP can more effectively appeal to minority voters, RNC spokesman Ryan Mahoney confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution, which first reported the meeting, described it as a “quiet, private therapy session” to which the press and top state legislators would not be invited. However, Mahoney said there was no effort to avoid publicizing the event. While the meeting itself will be closed-door, the RNC will hold a press availability afterwards.

“It’s part of a growth and opportunity project in which Priebus is going across the country listening to input from different groups on how we can build and grow the GOP to win future elections,” Mahoney said. “It’s a diverse group of African Americans from across the state. We’ve got youth leaders, community leaders, small business owners - we tried to gather a group together that would provide some good input.”

President Obama won 93 percent of the black vote, 71 percent of the Hispanic vote and 73 percent of the Asian vote in the 2012 election, provoking many Republicans to re-examine their message and policies as they relate to minorities.

Mahoney said Thursday’s event is one of many nationwide meetings Priebus will conduct in the coming months.

At the RNC winter meeting in Charlotte, N.C., last month, Priebus made minority outreach the focus of his speech.

“I’m no math whiz; I’m an attorney. But I don’t need a calculator to know we need to win more votes,” he said. “We have to find more supporters. We have to go places we haven’t been, and we have to invite new people to join us … On the local and state level, we have many success stories in states like Texas and Florida — where Republicans are winning in minority communities. Let’s learn from them, highlight them, celebrate them, and apply those lessons nationwide.”

Priebus also argued that the GOP needs to highlight to the public that Hispanics and blacks have been disproportionately hurt “in the Obama economy.”

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