These days, there is little trust between reporters and President Donald Trump’s communications office.
The White House news briefing, after emerging as a can’t-miss ritual of the early days of the Trump administration, has in recent weeks become shorter, less informative and less accessible, with some of the briefings declared off-limits to live broadcasting.
Those whose job it is to cover the White House are not pleased.
“We believe strongly that Americans should be able to watch and listen to senior government officials face questions from an independent news media,” the White House Correspondents’ Association president, Jeff Mason of Reuters, wrote in a memo to members Friday. “We are not satisfied with the current state of play, and we will work hard to change it.”
Hours later, it was clear that any negotiations remained a work in progress.
Most Read Nation & World Stories
For the third time last week, the White House barred news organizations from showing the briefing, which has traditionally been televised, and requested that audio recordings be withheld from broadcast until after the question-and-answer session concluded.
The major TV networks acquiesced, although not without some grumbling. CNN, which has emerged as a particularly vocal critic of the no-broadcast rules, sent a courtroom sketch artist to the briefing room, who scratched out an illustration of the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, addressing reporters.
“It’s great for us to come out here and have a substantive discussion about policies,” Spicer said at the lectern, when asked why Friday’s briefing had been taken off-camera. “I don’t think that the be-all and end-all is whether it’s on television or not.”
Off-camera briefings occurred under previous presidents, often parceled out among regular televised sessions with the press secretary. But these days, there is little trust between reporters and President Donald Trump’s communications office.
Spicer, after initially attracting big TV audiences several times a week, has cut back: There are fewer televised briefings, with fewer questions entertained at each. The White House argues that reporters take advantage of the briefings to showboat for the cameras. Reporters say the press secretary does not want to be captured on video dodging tough questions, or committing a gaffe that could irk Trump, an avid viewer of the briefings.
Off-camera briefings “are not a substitute for the open back-and-forth between reporters and administration officials that regular televised briefings allow,” Mason wrote in his memo, noting “the need for transparency at the highest levels of government.”
White House correspondents acknowledge that the briefings can sometimes have limited value as a reporting tool. But they say it remains important for an administration to discuss its actions and its policy in a public forum, even if the ritual has long been an opportunity for aides to spin and obfuscate on behalf of their president.
The notion of reducing TV coverage of the briefings is not unique to the current administration. Mike McCurry, who was President Bill Clinton’s press secretary, has said he regretted allowing cameras into the briefings, saying the temptation for reporters to grandstand has eroded the quality of the sessions.
Spicer and his colleagues have been more closelipped than their predecessors, often saying that they do not know Trump’s thinking on an issue or that they have not had a chance to ask him. Among the subjects Trump has apparently not discussed with his senior media aides: whether he believes that Russia interfered in last year’s election and if climate change is a hoax.