President Obama’s communications team, which has long been accused of shutting out the media,  announced recently that the President would begin doing small market television interviews. It was the President’s way of saying he was getting out to the people.

I wasn’t privy to the planning of this strategy, but I can pretty well guess that the idea was to circumvent the tough Washington, DC press corps in an effort to find more amenable and grateful interviewers — ones without presidential reporting experience.

Well, this video shows that the strategy may be backfiring.  It an interview at the White House between a local Texas TV reporter and the President, the reporter seems unbowed by the President; in fact, he grills him a bit and the President clearly doesn’t like it. (He tells the reporter that in no uncertain terms at the conclusion of the clip.)

Two thoughts: 1.) If you were a minor league baseball player offered a turn at bat for the Yankees one night, wouldn’t you swing for the fence? I would think local TV reporters granted a once-in-a-lifetime interview with the President would do the same. 2.) What would that reporter have to lose? The President — and the President’s handlers — aren’t on any of these stations’ regular beats, so what can White House Communications do to them?  Shut them out of the next story — the one they would never get anyway?

Wonder how long these Apollo Creed-inspired interviews will go on…