If there is one thing that the legacy media bigots can’t stand, it is journalists who do not think like they do.
That showed in the first Trump administration when former press secretary Sean Spicer called on conservative reporters in the White House press room. And it has been at play in the second administration with the inclusion of conservative influencers in the White House press mix.
While the press has mostly kept its complaints private, it spilled out last week when podcaster Katie Couric and MS Now host Jen Psaki whined openly about the addition of conservative media to the White House press corps.
Psaki, the former Biden White House spokeswoman, complained on Next Question with Katie Couric that the new media is made up of “sycophants … who are not asking about news that the American people cares about.”
And Couric responded, “They’ve invited a lot of reporters from very right-wing media outlets.”
Actually, the Trump press office has broadened the political diversity of the press corps covering the president, so it is more than the liberal Washington outlets. The office did not take away liberal media slots, but opened up the pool of reporters allowed into the White House.
And of note, Trump, who is considered the most accessible president ever, typically calls on liberal reporters in his extended meet-and-greets.
From the Next Question with Katie Couric video podcast on Wednesday for Substack and YouTube:
JEN PSAKI: And what they’ve done is they have really, and I read the press briefing a lot because we do a little thing on our show about it sometimes, more and more of the questions in there are by sycophants, are by people who are not asking about news that the American people cares about, but they’re asking about, I mean, literally a question has started more than once, why is Trump in such good shape, right?
Or they are, you know, putting out conspiracy theories. There are people who, and they are getting a lot of the questions. There are some of the people who are in the press pools — this means that reporters who are there to cover MBS being at the White House, or to cover Zelensky being at the White House, or to ask these questions that Mary Bruce fortunately asked yesterday, there are fewer of them. And that is, you don’t know that and see that unless you’ve lived there, but that’s a huge, huge problem because it’s becoming more of a Kremlin-esque press corps.
KATIE COURIC: Right. And they’ve invited a lot of reporters from very right-wing media outlets, and you’re right, they usually say, I forget there was one example, like, “Did you ever believe that you would be the peacemaker?” I mean, just, so–
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “What chutzpah. After presiding over press briefings dominated by Biden-friendly reporters while rarely taking a question from a journalist tough on Biden, Psaki is now upset when Trump and his press secretary get some friendly questions while also taking plenty from ‘traditional’ outlets very hostile to Trump. In fact, this answer from Psaki came in the context of her responding to how President Trump had criticized a question from ABC’s Mary Bruce – proof in itself that Trump still gets aggressive questions from the left-wing media.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
