Those who dislike the press may applaud President Trump’s directive that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders not conduct a daily briefing for the White House press corps. But everyone who cares about democracy should be alarmed. The essence of a democracy is that power belongs to the people and is given from them to the government. As Francis Bacon said centuries ago, knowledge is power. Anything that keeps knowledge from the people, therefore, should be opposed.
Admittedly, Sanders’ infrequent press briefings rarely yield information that contributes to the public’s knowledge of what the Trump administration is doing. Indeed, they have deteriorated into carnival-like spectacles, proving virtually useless in terms of dispensing information to the public. She almost always seems bothered by having to answer reporters’ questions and rarely hides her contempt. She can be snarky and is frequently dishonest. In fairness, some reporters sink to her level of inappropriate behavior by preening for the cameras, engaging in a debate rather than questioning and asking “gotcha” questions which are designed for the sole purpose of making her look bad. Who wouldn’t want to end that?
It is a time-honored tradition for the president’s press secretary to conduct a daily briefing for the White House press corps. That may mean little in an era when we send people to Washington to disrupt things. Yet there is a critical difference between disrupting and destroying.
The briefings are much more than a tradition, like the Easter Egg Roll or playing “Hail to the Chief” when the president enters a room. The daily press briefings are an indispensable part of what makes us a democracy. By definition, in a democracy, the elected government is accountable to the people, and one of the most important ways the government accounts for itself is by regularly answering questions from reporters. Even if White House press briefings provide little accurate or useful information, they serve an important purpose. For one thing, they create an indisputable record of what official government spokespeople say. Additionally, they show that in our country, we respect and value the constitutionally protected free press. The spokesperson for the chief executive subjecting him or herself to daily questioning by reporters is an essential element of what keeps us free. It’s not done in Moscow, Pyongyang, Beijing, or Riyadh. Even if a briefing yields only a tiny morsel of information, it’s worth it.
In the Ronald Reagan White House, the daily briefings were not televised, but we devoted an inordinate amount of time every weekday morning preparing for the noon briefing. Staffers would spend hours reaching out to colleagues in the White House and throughout the Executive Branch tracking down information the press secretary might need to respond to a question. Roughly a half hour before the briefing was scheduled to begin, we would gather in the press secretary’s office to go over what we had learned to make sure he was ready for everything and anything reporters might ask him. We prided ourselves on anticipating questions and were demoralized when we missed one.
To us, the daily White House press briefings were neither a game nor a competition. We viewed them as part of what came with the territory of running the government, but more than that, as both an obligation and opportunity to explain and, if we did it right, generate public support for the president’s goals and policies.
And they were one of the best ways for us to gauge what was likely to be the lead news story (or stories) of the day. All three of the White House press secretaries for whom I worked — Jim Brady, Larry Speakes, and Marlin Fitzwater — frequently reminded the staff that often we would learn more from reporters’ questions than they would from our answers. It was not publicized at the time, but when he could, the White House chief of staff would listen to the press secretary’s daily briefing via a direct audio feed to his office.
President Trump likes to point out that he is more “accessible” to reporters than some recent presidents. His magnet-like attraction to television cameras causes him to answer a lot of questions from the White House press corps, usually shouted at him in the Oval Office and Cabinet Room or as he makes his way to a waiting helicopter on the south lawn of the White House. And he grants interviews to supportive news organizations. Doing so, he and his aides argue, makes the daily press briefings by his press secretary irrelevant and unnecessary.
Not true.
Although they sometimes yield interesting soundbites, those brief encounters with the president are hardly an adequate substitute for the in-depth probing that should take place at daily press briefings.
Think for a moment: What happens if the president decides not to answer questions at photo opportunities or on-the-run at helicopter departures, discontinues being interviewed by friendly reporters, and his edict banning press briefings remains in force? How will he and his administration be accountable to the people?
Simply put, they won’t. And that’s a problem for a democracy. A big problem. There is no such thing as a democracy without government being accountable to the people. The absence of accountability is called totalitarianism.
It has been said that ever since Watergate, reporters presume the Executive Branch — regardless of party — is lying and has something to hide. Unfortunately, that has sometimes proven true. That’s exactly why the idea of doing away with the daily press briefing by the White House press secretary is so troubling. Questions always need to be asked.
In the Trump administration, the president’s press secretaries have not exactly been beacons of truth. As unfortunate as that is, it is essential that they maintain the practice of subjecting themselves to questioning by the White House press corps.
Imperfect though some may be, reporters are the public’s eyes and ears in monitoring what our government is doing. That’s why the Founding Fathers chose to enshrine reporters’ freedom in the First Amendment. If reporters do not hold an administration’s feet to the fire, who will? If reporters don’t know what’s happening, how will we?
Mark Weinberg is a communications consultant, speechwriter, and the author of Movie Nights with the Reagans (Simon & Schuster). He served as special assistant to the president and assistant press secretary in Ronald Reagan’s White House, and as director of public affairs in former President Reagan’s office.
