Seating for Obama's News Conference

Seating Chart

(Fox News) - Some reporters were unhappy with their treatment at President Obama’s news conference Monday. Many correspondents from major outlets — who normally have front row seats — did not. A reporter from the liberal Huffington Post and liberal radio host Ed Schultz were on the front row. Two reporters from African-American media were also seated up front, but neither was called on.

Hazel Edney of the National Newspaper Publishers Association says, "We were nothing more than window dressing."

Tiffany Cross of Black Entertainment Television said "I really don't know why I’m up here."

Former correspondent Helen Thomas — who lost her front row perch when she became a columnist — was back in first class and was one of only 13 reporters allowed to ask a question.

President Obama said during the session that the stimulus contained "not a single pet project. Not a single earmark."

Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press concedes that is technically true but writes "some of the projects bear the prime characteristics of pork — tailored to benefit specific interests or to have thinly disguised links to local projects."

He cites $2 billion for hybrid car batteries and $10 million for urban canals... not to mention $198 million for Filipino veterans — two-thirds of whom live outside the U.S.