Former press secretaries for Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton tweeted on Wednesday that live coverage of White House press briefings should end and the film should be embargoed until later.
“We support no live TV coverage of WH briefing,” Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to Bush, and Mike McCurry, former press secretary to Clinton, both said in tweets. “Embargo it & let it be used, but not as live TV. Better for the public, the WH & the press.”
We support no live TV coverage of WH briefing. Embargo it & let it be used, but not as live TV. Better for the public, the WH & the press.
— Mike McCurry (@mmccurry) June 28, 2017
We support no live TV coverage of WH briefing. Embargo it & let it be used, but not as live TV. Better for the public, the WH & the press.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) June 28, 2017
Fleischer and McCurry had previously made a similar argument in a joint op-ed that appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review in January.
“If the briefing is ‘embargoed’ until its conclusion, it will become just one of several raw ingredients that journalists can use to prepare their reports on the work of the president and the White House,” they wrote. “It would instantly become a toned-down briefing, and reporters would use the information from the briefing and test it against other sources as they prepare coverage. It would not be a ‘news event’ in and of itself.”
They added that, “Too much of the briefing today is a game of ‘gotcha’ and ‘what did the president do wrong?’ A better model would focus on facts and substance.”
Fleischer also echoed these comments in an interview with The Hill in April.
“The briefing would be cameras in the back of the room, film it all, but there would be no live coverage,” Fleischer said. “So if CNN wants to replay the entire briefing at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, they could. I doubt they ever would but they could.”
The tweets come after a reporter charged deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders with being “inflammatory” during a press briefing on Tuesday and criticism from reporters for the White House’s decision to make some press briefings off-camera.
