Your right it was a PRESS conference but are you also trying to say he did not know America was listening even after he (his team) highly publicized / promoted this conference.
Yes he should have looked art the press (Not above them all) but also to the camera some of the time would have been proper and better received by the people he was preaching to. Remember one of his purpose for the conference was to build the American public confidence on the stimulus as announce by his own team. So yes he should have used (looked) the camera a fair percentage of the time.