Listening mode: Barack Obama takes a question at his closing press conference of the London summit

At the end of Barack Obama’s press conference following the Group of 20 summit on Thursday, a large crowd of journalists did something journalists never do: they gave a politician a standing ovation (this reporter stayed neutral). In a week that began with a flurry of meetings between the US president and his counterparts from China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, Britain and others, and ends with this Saturday’s Nato summit, the media’s uncharacteristic behaviour might easily be forgotten.