WaPo 'Reporters' Urge WH Press Corps Not To Go Tough on Biden at Press Conference
Joe Biden is scheduled to finally have a press conference. (Today at 1:15 eastern - but after last nights blank stare, we wouldnt be at all surprised if it's canceled.)
No doubt there will be efforts on the part of the White House to head off any issues and limit the damage, perhaps even limiting who gets to ask questions/calling on more friendly reporters.
But at this point, he’s delayed their ability to have real questions on a host of issues, they’re not happy and he’s set it for a day where they’re going to be asking a ton of questions about the border crisis. Now that might explain why he appointed Kamala Harris today to take over the border, so tomorrow he can say, “Ask her.” But that wouldn’t fly if he tries that tactic.
But reporters from The Washington Post are, unbelievably, urging their brethren not to be tough on him during the presser. According to Margaret Sullivan and Jen Rubin, the question wasn’t really how Biden would do in the presser but whether the media could contain themselves from going too hard at him.
It’s a major test for news organizations and reporters in covering Biden.
And Joe Lockhart, a press secretary under President Bill Clinton, fears the press corps won’t be able to resist walking in with the mentality of, “We’re gonna show all the MAGA people we can be just as tough on Biden as we were on Trump.”
Yeah, that’s exactly what media should be concerned about with over 60 days of Biden ducking media and lacking transparency on a wide variety of issues.
Now this was the same ‘journalist’ who told the media that they needed to ‘abandon neutrality-at-all-costs journalism’ and “In this new era, my prescription is less false equivalence, more high-impact language and more willingness to take a stand for democracy. With Trump unbound, the news media need to change. Yes, radically. The stakes are too high not to,” Sullivan concluded.
Yes, we get you abandoned neutrality at all costs. You just don’t seem to understand how that makes you not a journalist but a Democratic advocate.
Jen Rubin was even worse. Any concerns or questions were just things “ginned up” by Republicans, according to her. So therefore media shouldn’t be falling for all that or pressing Biden on those questions. Indeed, Biden should be fact checking the media if they dared ask. No kidding, that’s what she said.
As my Post colleague Margaret Sullivan writes, “The burgeoning number of migrants — including thousands of children — is a legitimate concern and a valid story. But much of the news media seems to be using it to show that they intend to present [President] Biden in just as critical a light as they often did Trump — regardless of whether that’s deserved.” What’s more: The media storyline has been factually misleading.
In reality, there has been no surge of arrivals outside the normal fluctuation of migration. [….]
The lesson here for the administration is to debunk and rebut a false Republican-driven narrative quickly. As they do with covid-19 hearings, showering reporters with data rather than debating an issue on Republican terms generally works better. It is now also incumbent on the media to review its coverage and come clean with viewers and readers. When its breathless coverage turns out to be deeply misleading, it should explain how and why they got it wrong.
This is fantasy. According to Rubin, Republicans just made up the thousands of people flooding the border and overwhelming the CBP and the ability to deal with them. How does someone live in such unreality? Has she not seen the pictures herself? Or heard from the CBP or what the poor Democrats in the area – Democrats Rep. Henry Cuellar, Mayor Bruno Lozano and Sheriff J.E. Guerra – have all said. Or even what the president of Mexico has said. Thinking maybe these people know just a little bit more than Jen Rubin. Scary ignorance and bias on her part.
Scary that either of these folks is in the position of supposedly “informing” the public.
HT: Twitchy
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