President Joe Biden’s White House frequently demands an opportunity to edit quotes from administration officials before they head to print, according to a new report.
Politico cited five journalists who cover the White House who said there is a “background with quote approval” process in which the Biden communications team vets quotes before a name can be attached.
The routine includes reporters sending quotes to the communications shop, which then decides whether to “approve, veto or edit them,” the report said.
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Although past teams, including those in the Obama and Trump administrations, used such a practice, the frequency by which the Biden crew tries to control the flow of information is what stands out.
“The rule treats them like coddled Capitol Hill pages, and that’s not who they are or the protections they deserve,” one White House reporter, who was not named, told the news outlet.
Peter Baker, the longtime chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, said these kinds of rules began as a way for reporters to get more transparency by asking an official to move a blind quote to one on the record, but each successive White House in recent years has used the practice as a way to circumvent the free press.
“Instead of transparency, suddenly, the White House realized: ‘Hey, this quote approval thing is a cool thing. We can now control what is in their stories by refusing to allow them to use anything without our approval. And it’s a pernicious, insidious, awful practice that reporters should resist,” Baker said.
In a statement, White House press secretary Jen Psaki touched on the use of anonymous background quotes but didn’t go further into detail related to concerns raised by the press.
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“We would welcome any outlet banning the use of anonymous background quotes that attack people personally or speak to internal processes from people who don’t even work in the Administration,” Psaki said. “At the same time, we make policy experts available in a range of formats to ensure context and substantive detail is available for stories. If outlets are not comfortable with that attribution for those officials they of course don’t need to utilize those voices.”
