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WASHINGTON
Josh Earnest

Obama has women do the asking at press event

Catalina Camia and Donovan Slack
USA TODAY
President Obama holds his final news conference of 2014.

Was President Obama trying to send a message Friday about women in the news media? Yes, as it turns out.

Obama started his final question-and-answer session of the year by calling on Carrie Budoff Brown of Politico, then proceeded to take questions only from women until April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks got the last query.

None of the male reporters in the White House briefing room were called on by Obama — and they noticed.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged the all-female lineup.

"The fact is, there are many women from a variety of news organizations who day-in and day-out do the hard work of covering the president of the United States," Earnest said. "As the questioner list started to come together, we realized that we had a unique opportunity to highlight the fact at the president's closely watched, end-of-the-year news conference."

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While it sometimes appears on television as though Obama is randomly calling on reporters, he actually selects them from a list prepared by his press secretary and his staff. Neither the president nor his staff know what the questions will be.

This isn't the first time the president has favored the female members of the White House press corps over the men. He called only on women journalists at the end of the NATO summit in Wales in September.

But this is the first time during Obama's 32 solo news conferences at the White House that it's been an all-female press event, according to White House historian Martha Joynt Kumar. "I don't remember it from any other administration," says Joynt Kumar, who has been monitoring White House news conferences since the 1970s.

Mark Knoller, a CBS News correspondent and the press corps' unofficial statistician, said on Twitter that TV reporters were advised before the news conference began that they wanted to call on reporters who don't regularly get to ask Obama questions.

Obama sits down with CNN's Candy Crowley for an interview airing Sunday morning on the State of the Union program. Crowley, the network's chief political correspondent, is leaving CNN after 27 years.

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