The White House Correspondents Association was pleased the White House backed off its push to strip CNN’s Jim Acosta of his press credentials, but said it “fully expects” reporters will continue asking follow up questions despite the White House’s supposed new rules for the press corps.
#WHCA statement on restoration of press pass pic.twitter.com/zEnhev4Llj
— WHCA (@whca) November 19, 2018
In the wake of this farce, Ana Marie Cox and I’m sure many others are prominently making the argument often made here that news outlets shouldn’t send anyone, or at least not their leading reporters, to White House briefings. In the situation today you will not discomfit these shameless sociopaths no matter how many questions you ask, and you will not get one true word out of them. Cox said go out and cover the things they don’t want covered. Don’t waste time and talent on this futile arm-wrestling. I think it’s a hell of a good idea. But I don’t think it will happen.
Why not just print the press releases verbatim and skip the press conferences?
Well, even if you could get questions about the release answered in some follow-up way, TV needs sounds and images. They need to show their representative up there, jousting with the administration’s champion. In a word, they need tension. There are no stories by any definition without tension. And going toe to toe with Sarah is, frankly, cheaper and easier than creating stories about, you know, actual stories.
More like toe-to-hoof with Sarah…
They simply refused to be intimidated and the White House backed down.
All it takes is guts. That’s it.