Outgoing White House press secretary Sean Spicer trashed the media on the same day he resigned his position, and said most White House reporters are more interested in getting clicks than writing about the truth and facts.
“I was increasingly disappointed in how so many members of the media do their job, or rather don’t do their job,” Spicer said in an interview on Fox News. “The bias which they come from, it has become a clickbait mentality with the reporters where they are concerned with their clip or their click more than they are with the truth and the facts.”
Asked by host Sean Hannity whether the media is biased, Spicer said: “I think you are right. There is a bias but there is also a Washington mentality.”
Spicer is well-known to Washington, D.C., media, having served as communications director for the Republican National Committee before becoming White House press secretary. As press secretary, he was an aggressive defender of President Trump, before he took on a less public role and participated in fewer live broadcast briefings.
The White House announced Spicer’s resignation Friday, a move that came the same day that Wall Street financier and President Trump loyalist Anthony Scaramucci was named communications director.
In his six-month tenure, Spicer said, he became frustrated with how the media has covered the White House and its pursuit of the Russia investigations.
“I don’t want to paint everybody with the same brush, but the majority of folks who are in the briefing room, they are not in there for the pursuit of truth,” Spicer said. “Rather they are trying to figure out, how do I get on TV? How do I become a YouTube star, and that is disappointing. There are some good reporters that spend time getting to know, to learn the facts, to get the story out. They should be rewarded. They should be praised for their journalism. There are some reporters that do that. By and large we are seeing more and more about that clip or the click.”
Hannity closed the interview by asking Spicer whether the public is being properly “served” by the media.
“I think some, yes, some networks yes, some reporters yes, but in a lot of cases, the answer is no,” Spicer said.
Later, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, also speaking with Hannity, echoed Spicer’s criticism of the media.
“You do get so thick-skinned that you don’t even read the articles after a while,” Priebus said. “I mean, you just don’t care what some of this stuff says because you know it’s garbage, you’ve become conditioned to the garbage, and you have to go with the good honest reporters that want to report the truth, that play it straight, and you have to reward those people with the interviews and most of the things that you can give out.”
