Message control is central to every administration . . . [b]ut the Obama White House has actually regressed in some troubling ways. For instance, Obama has been far less available for questioning by journalists than even President Bush . . . For White House reporters the absence of informal opportunities to question the president is at least as galling as the dearth of formal sessions. Richard Stevenson, who covered the Bush administration for The New York Times, says it was routine for reporters to be allowed to ask the president questions-often several times a week-when they were ushered into the Oval Office for quick pool sprays or in other less regimented settings. "It wasn't an extensive give-and-take, but he did take questions quite frequently," says Stevenson, now the paper's deputy Washington bureau chief. "Obama has almost completely stopped doing that."