President Elect Obama ditches press:

"it was in December when he ditched the press pool, and he wasn’t just out for dinner somewhere. He was on a Hawaii vacation. CNN reported at the time:

A vacationing President-elect Barack Obama slipped away from the traveling press pool that follows him wherever he goes, taking his two young daughters, family members and friends to Hawaii’s Sea Life Park.

Likewise, the New York Times reported around the same time:

In the news-free zone that is Barack Obama’s preinauguration Hawaiian vacation, this passes for a bulletin: The president-elect ditched his “press pool” of media minders to take his daughters to a water park on Friday morning.

In making his dash — with his Secret Service security detail, to be sure — Mr. Obama drew attention both to the seemingly odd but important rituals of the presidential (and prepresidential) bubble and to just how much this very private public man chafes under its constraints."