The Trump administration is vowing to give more reporters from outside Washington, D.C., a chance to ask questions at the daily White House press briefing, even though it’s been six weeks since spokesman Sean Spicer took a question from someone in the remote “Skype seats” that he rolled out at the start of the administration.
Four months ago, Spicer rolled out the idea of taking remote questions from reporters outside the nation’s capital. It was seen as an aggressive decision to de-emphasize the mainstream reporters that usually get the lion’s share of the questions during the daily briefings and instead give reporters from rural areas, including in states that Trump carried during the election, a chance to participate in the briefing.
The move also came after President Trump’s many famous scrapes with the mainstream press during the campaign.
However, the White House has taken questions from the Skype seats less and less frequently over Trump’s first four months.
According to a Washington Examiner analysis of the briefings, Skype questions were taken with much more regularity at the start of the Trump administration. In February, Spicer took questions from 18 remote reporters in five different press briefings. In March, the White House took questions from just seven remote reporters in four different briefings.
And, in April, Spicer took just the one remote question, when Richard Elliot from WSB-TV in Atlanta questioned the press secretary about rebuilding Interstate 85, which runs through the city. Elliot asked that question on April 13, which was the last remote question Spicer took.
Still, the White House insisted that it has no intention of ending the program and said the ability to take remote questions depends mostly on scheduling factors.
“Skype in press briefings is a popular program, and we will continue with it, but it fully depends upon Sean Spicer’s schedule, which is determined by the president’s calendar,” a White House official told the Washington Examiner.
For example, visits by foreign dignitaries and travel, such as last week’s trip abroad, have had an impact on the frequency of the Skype seats, the White House said. Spicer joined Trump and other White House officials overseas on the president’s first foreign trip, which spanned nine days.
Another factor in the reduced number of Skype briefings has been the stepped-up pace of hosting foreign dignitaries over the last few months, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in April.
The White House’s plan to launch Skype seats was initially met with some skepticism and some criticism that Trump was trying to dodge the questions of the mainstream press. But it was also viewed positively by others who saw it as a way for the White House to field questions from reporters with regional concerns.
So far, those asking questions of Spicer via a television screen rolled into the briefing room included reporters for local television stations in Rhode Island, Miami, Las Vegas, and Cincinnati.
But participants occupying the Skype seats have also included those who are friendly to Trump, a move that drew criticism. Such participants include nationally syndicated radio personalities like Lars Larson and Michael Medved, and others like Jeff Jobe, a Kentucky newspaper publisher, and Jason Stevens, a visiting assistant history professor at Ashland University who has written for a publication called the “Federalist Papers Project.”
