White House Schools the Press: 'You All Ought to Do Your Jobs'

White House press secretary Jay Carney used today's briefing to tell members of the press how to do their job. "You all ought to do your jobs and report on context," Carney said in response to a question on President Obama's Friday comment Friday that "the private sector is doing fine."

"In this recovery that has seen 4.3 million jobs in the private sector created, it has also seen a situation where, because of massive layoffs of teachers and firefighters and police officers, a reduction in the public sector. And by public sector, we're talking about state and local governments who have had to layoff teachers from classrooms, firefighters from the force and police officers from the force. That was the context in which he was speaking, which I think everyone in this room was aware of at the time," Carney said.

"Certainly, we believe that you all ought to do your jobs and report on context, of course. And we think that's important generally," Carney instructed reporters.

Carney then went on to mock Fox News White House reporter Ed Henry. 

The advice might be seen as rich, especially coming from Carney. After all, Carney used to be a member of the press--a journalist for Time magazine--before joining the Obama administration, first as Vice President Joe Biden's press secretary before being promoted to President Obama's spokesman.