Biden press conference controversy, explained

President Joe Biden signed the $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill, backed by a solid majority of Americans and, among many other things, funding the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine, fixing what Fox News is not doing. Doing: Holding formal formal news conferences.

While he has repeatedly answered reporters’ questions in informal settings and hosted a CNN townhall, Biden News has spent 500 days without holding a formal news conference. It would be ideal for him to do so, but there are many good reasons he has not yet taken – an immediate public health and economic crisis, which complicates the epidemic, and former President Donald Trump left him as president. News conferences double as hateful glasses.

Yet, as it begins to give more impetus to members of the press corps, Vanity Fair, president of the White House Respondents Association, said full press conferences are “important for informing the American people and holding the administration accountable.” And the Washington Post’s editorial board wrote, “It’s time for Biden to hold a news conference” – while acknowledging that more press availability is not the same as more truth or transparency with the previous president.

The cautious talk of the journalistic editorial board presents how journalists have to evaluate their relationship with the authorities and what it means to be anti-journalism now that the White House is not the home of the regular liars who regularly made journalists the subject of hatred. It was accessible to them on a regular basis Helicopter side press availability And the coronavirus remembers the best for floating press briefings or the idea of ​​disinfectant as a remedy for Trump Covid-19.

But on the cable network that has benefited the most from Trump’s presidency, all that sense has been lost.

Fox News has done its best in recent days to dispel the fact that Biden has not yet been able to hold a news conference in a major scandal, with which Special graphics And the coverage shows that Biden is hiding something.

Alone on Thursday morning, Fox hosts the news Said “B Biden has been going on for days without a formal press conference, which blows up the questions of the journalists.” And “Here we have the 50 – 50 day Biden presidency – and our primetime address, but there is no formal news conference yet.”

While it is true that Biden has broken with the modern vision of not holding a news conference at any time in his first month in office, Press Secretary Jane Sasaki answers reporters’ questions every week during a briefing that shows one reason Biden may not be in the running. Do one yourself.

Peter Doozy of Fox News, during a pasaki briefing, distances himself from regularly asking questions on issues ranging from load, gocha style. National anthem For Olympics To energy policy To resume school.

One can understand why Biden is jousted Frequently With Doozy during press availability in recent months, his time should be spent on things other than helping Fox News make readymade clips to prepare Henniti. But Fox’s decision not to join is allegedly being drawn, as the campaign is hiding something about its pre-existing purpose and being less than former President Donald Trump.

“When do your viewers remember? [Trump] Going out to Marine One, he would just do those relentless press conferences and he would take every question, all the questions, sometimes he would stay there for 30, 40 minutes, “Jeep told Jordan (R-OH)) during Tuesday’s edition of Sean Hannity.” Only the American people deserve it. “

Not to mention Jordan and Hanniti, of course, is that while Trump would have been more willing than ever for Biden himself to engage with journalists, the former president’s interactions with journalists were the opposite of constructive.

Nothing is clear about Trump’s news conference

Any discussion of the controversy surrounding Biden and the news conference (as it is) would not be complete without remembering that during Trump’s years, the president’s engagement with reporters was more of a wrestling mania than a sharing of information in good faith – something Pasaki tried and largely succeeded. Done during her press briefing.

Clearly, however, political journalism that does not consider the powerful is nothing more than public relations. To some extent tension between the press and elected officials is a good and natural thing. But over the years, the relationship between the executive branch and the journalists who cover it has become abusive.

For example, during Trump’s first formal official news conference – held on February 16, 2017 – he reprimanded the press for accurately covering the circumstances surrounding the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. Such as “reporting is fake” and calling journalists “dishonest”.

That press conference was such a disaster that Trump walked away more than a whole year before holding it for the second year. Yet Biden did not have a press conference with the fact that some observers contradicted Trump’s February 2017 cage match as evidence that Biden was somehow falling short.

While Fox News will likely use the Biden press conference to create Gotecha moments, there are legitimate questions for the president to answer. What is his strategy for raising the minimum wage, given that he did not make it into the Covid-19 bill? What is its long-term plan to deal with the recent surge of undocumented immigrants on the southern border? What is his response to Democrats criticizing his decision to launch airstrikes in Syria?

Pasaki recently told CNN that Biden plans to answer reporters’ questions during a news conference shortly.

“We look forward to holding a full formal press conference, but in the meantime the president regularly takes questions from reporters covering the White House, including this morning. [on March 3]”And she’s focused on getting the epidemic under control all day and getting people back to work. People chose to do it,” she said.

Indeed, while signing the Covid-19 bill on Thursday, Byden indicated that he would hold a news conference soon, To say Journalists will take “questions” from them “in the next few days.”

The fox struggles for blows on Biden

It is worth noting that Biden has gone on for a relatively long time without holding a news conference. But Fox has been most inclined to blow the issue into a big scandal that shows them the difficulty of drawing blood on the Biden administration.

Before the pressure-gate became a big topic, Fox News spent a better part of a week blaming Biden for the (fake) cancellation of the Sector. Hennity is constantly pushing Conspiracy theories about Biden’s health, While the network’s “news side” is struggling to move the right-wing complaint with never-ending discussions of “cancel culture”.

Like many others in this example, Fox’s coverage echoes what leading Republicans like RNC Chair Rona McDaniel have to say:

It’s hard for Republicans to attack Biden on merit right now, although a majority of Republican voters also support the signature part of the law he just signed. But it’s also worth noting that it’s not just Fox.

On Thursday, for example, ABC ran a headline, “Biden raises questions of responsibility, not yet holding a news conference.” And CNN ran an article on March 3 with the headline: “There are many ways to measure the accessibility of an American president. One way is by counting press conferences. Right now, by that count, President Biden seems invisible. “

But if the Trump era has taught us anything, it’s that the way the president’s administration has communicated with the press is important – it’s their character and quality. Biden himself may have had less ible access to the press than Trump so far, but given the country suffered and inherited Biden during the Trump era, Americans don’t seem to notice that they are focusing on things that are far more oppressive. .