Listening to the national media explain why daily on-camera press briefings from the White House are crucial is like listening to a child lay out to his parents all the big reasons he needs a new iPad:
I need it!
Why?
I just do!
But even children can be more persuasive. (It will help me with my homework!)
On the other hand, reporters and critical Democrats who insist that American democracy depends on live cameras at the briefings can’t offer a single intelligible purpose for them.
The White House has given press briefings about once per weekday, a mix of which have been on-camera for live broadcast or audio-only for release at their conclusion.
The public has somehow managed to keep going on the days that Sean Spicer, who is leaving his position in August, and his deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, didn’t put on makeup and have a back-and-forth with reporters on live TV.
But MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough effectively called for a boycott of the briefings this past Tuesday because 20 days had gone by without an on-camera briefing.
“I wonder how long it’s going to be before more members of the press walk out of these briefings if they keep getting less and less significant and more incomplete,” said Scarborough. Then, he went to commercial without offering any explanation as to why live cameras are necessary for reporters to formulate questions.
One person on Twitter said it’s “awful that in today’s America the O.J. parole hearing is televised and the White House press briefings are not! THIS IS NOT NORMAL!” White House reporter April Ryan re-tweeted the message on Thursday with an enthusiastic, “Agreed!”
As a prisoner, O.J. Simpson had no say in whether his hearing was televised. (Plus, I think he committed a double homicide, introducing an element of interest that so far eludes Spicer and Sanders.)
Earlier in the week on MSNBC, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., appealed to the social scientist in all of us.
“On-camera is important because we’re visual creatures, right?” he said. “I mean, you know, psychologists will tell you that over half of the information we get from talking to somebody has nothing to do with the words that we use. It has to do with whether we’re rolling our eyes or smiling or what the visual cues are.”
It’s actually very easy to convey information from one source to another without a live video feed. Journalists can even break news this way!
Nearly every major story about the White House this year was broken by a newspaper, in print.
“Trump team met with lawyer linked to Kremlin during campaign” — New York Times, July 8.
“GOP operative sought Clinton emails from hackers, implied a connection to Flynn” — June 29, Wall Street Journal.
“Justice Department warned White House that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail, officials say” — Washington Post, Feb. 13.
“Intercepted Russian communications part of inquiry into Trump associates” — New York Times, Jan. 19.
By contrast, the only “news” that came out of the press briefings had to do with some reporter yelling at Sarah Huckabee Sanders or whatever served as the latest inspiration for another mediocre “Saturday Night Live” skit.
Two things happen at the White House briefings: A spokesperson reads off statements related to the administration’s agenda, and then, reporters ask questions. (Then, those reporters go do their live shots and complain about the answers they received.)
The briefings are almost entirely uneventful if you remove the incidents where reporters turn them into personal therapy sessions and vent about how badly they believe they’ve been treated by the White House.
Sarah Sanders and Sean Spicer are White House officials, not circus monkeys.
They’re not there to put on a show.
Eddie Scarry is a media reporter for the Washington Examiner.
