A new, eyebrow-raising report indicates that the White House communications team tried to investigate questions for press secretary Jen Psaki before the daily briefings. Trump’s spokesmen.
Spectator editor Amber Athey, formerly a White House correspondent for The Daily Caller, has never experienced anything resembling Biden’s communications staff.
“The Trump administration has certainly never asked me questions beforehand and I suspect there would have been universal outrage from reporters if they had done so,” Athey told Fox News.
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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks at a White House press conference on Monday, January 25, 2021 in Washington. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)
Reporters apparently became so frustrated by the practice that they complained to colleagues.
“It’s a normal procedure if you live in a banana republic, it’s absolutely unheard of in this country,” Conservative strategist Chris Barron told Fox News.
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When a White House spokesman was reached for comment, Fox News made the same statement in the Daily Beast report.
“Our goal is to make the daily information session as useful and informative as possible for both reporters and the public. Part of achieving this goal means that you will be in regular contact with the reporters in the information room to understand how “The White House can best help. The two-way conversation is an important part of keeping the American people informed of how the government is serving them,” the White House spokesman said.
Psaki, a former CNN expert who is usually praised by the mainstream media, has to step lightly when his reporters investigate for the wrong reasons, according to Jeffrey McCall, professor and media critic at DePauw University.
“The White House press office needs to balance this issue carefully. It makes sense on one level that the press secretary is prepared in advance to respond best to topics that are mooted by reporters. On the other hand, to gather questions in advance. veteran reporters do not allow press secretary Psaki to pre-examine questions or prepare spin, ”McCall told Fox News.
“Every personal information session is a risk situation for the White House, and Psaki must indeed respond and be prepared for reporter’s questions. It seems that the key to this is being used to set up the information sessions or simply to prepare for them.”
McCall believes that it would be excusable if reporters were asked questions in advance ‘merely as a way of getting a good answer and gathering information in advance’ with the aim of giving answers.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks to reporters at the James Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House on Thursday, January 21, 2021 in Washington. (AP Photo / Alex Brandon)
“However, if the process is designed to suppress the difficult questions or prepare rhetorical coverage, the risk factor is eliminated and the press appears to be staged,” McCall said. The White House press corps should expect to be able to ask questions that have not been pre-screened. This is partly because reporters do not always want to indicate in advance what questions they want to ask, and partly because the ebb and flow of any press creates opportunities for improvised questions that would not have seemed obvious. ‘
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Dan Gainor, vice president of the Media Research Center, believes most White House reporters go easy on Biden and his team, but knowing questions in advance is another way the government can benefit from a sociable relationship with the media.
“The left demands 100 percent loyalty from the press, not the 99 percent they already get,” Gainor told Fox News.
“In this case, Jen Psaki needs all the help she can get,” Gainor continued. “It’s clear he’s a minor league, even in the softball game the press corps plays with Team Biden.”
Back in 2009, then-correspondent Chip Reid, CBS News in the White House, and columnist Helen Thomas got into a heated confrontation with then-press secretary Robert Gibbs when it came to light that President Obama’s White House had been chosen to be interviewed. is for an online city hall.
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“It just feels very strict control,” Reid said at the time. “It sounds like a very strictly controlled audience and a list of questions. Why are you doing this? Why not open to the public?”
Thomas said: “I am amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency.”
Gainor feels that Biden’s White House is ‘trying to correct’ faster than the previous Democratic government.
“When the Obama administration did that in 2009, they waited at least until the middle of the year,” Gainor said, noting that he did not expect anyone to complain like Reid and Thomas did a decade ago. .
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“In today’s cancellation culture, journalists do not dare to be open in their criticism, so it’s all whispered,” Gainor said.
The White House Correspondents’ Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News’ Kristine Biddle contributed to this report.