Sports
Selfies with Obama May Be Banned After Ortiz Photo
White House officials were miffed when it was revealed Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz had a deal with Samsung to take a selfie with the president.
The White House is continuing to play hardball after Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz took a selfie with President Obama that later turned out to be part of a Samsung promotion.
An Obama advisor said there may be a ban on selfies with the president.
Samsung told the Boston Globe it had a deal with Ortiz to take photos at the White House when the Red Sox were there April 1 to celebrate their 2013 World Series trophy. Ortiz took a selfie with Obama using Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 device and posted the photo in Twitter. Samsung then paid to promote the selfie on the social network, and the photo was retweeted more than 40,000 times.
The White House said Obama had no idea about the Samsung deal.
"Maybe this will be the end of all selfies," Dan Pfeiffer, a senior advisor to Obama, said on Face the Nation Sunday. "Whenever someone tries to use the president's likeness to promote a product, that's a problem."
Ortiz could be heard saying "Cha-ching!" after taking the selfie.
White House press secretary Jay Carney also denounced the photo.
Samsung was behind the selfie Ellen DeGeneres posted at this year's Oscars. It was the most retweeted post ever.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
