Press Room Shakeup: Expect Breitbart and Gateway Pundit, Not NYT and CNN

In the coming Trump administration, when you see a shocking number of mind-bendingly easy and flattering questions in the briefing room, please remember the many times you saw Jen Psaki or Karin Jean-Pierre stare down Fox News’s Peter Doocy sitting in the very front row, just off the middle. Doocy would ask some antagonistic “gotcha question” that couldn’t really be answered but was voiced to highlight the question. Remember this when asking your future self how it is that Newsmax and Breitbart are asking inane questions from seats that used to be reserved for The New York Times, ABC News, and CNN. Because it is apparently on the horizon.

According to Axios, President-elect Donald Trump intends to make the press briefing room another outlet in which to hold court served by a lovingly compliant media. Per the report:

A new Trump administration is expected to challenge traditions in the famous James Brady Press Briefing Room… Confidants of President-elect Trump are considering changes that would give newer, MAGA-aligned voices access to daily press briefings.

There are a limited number of seats in the briefing room and the number is sensibly small – 49 total. Giving premium space to highly favorable sycophantic voices like Newsmax will comes at the expense of traditional outlets that thew out tough questions without regard to party or practice. It is the difference between a question like “How could this have gone so wrong,” over to something like, “Despite what happened, tell us what went right… ” These are simplistic renderings but probably not that far off given the pattern we’ve seen.

The report goes on:

Trump’s first administration tried to ban outlets it saw as unfavorable from off-camera press briefings. That included the New York Times, Politico, CNN and BBC…More recently, his campaign blocked multiple reporters from its election watch event in Mar-a-Lago last week, including those from Politico, Axios and Puck News.

So the former Trump administration tried to kick out mainstream outlets then and – as a private campaign entity, is already doing so now. Given that Donald Trump has absolutely nothing to lose in a second term, it will not shock anyone if he really does kick the Times, CNN, and Politico out. It may not alter the truth reported elsewhere but it will have a massive symbolic effect and make it much harder for reporters to challenge the administration’s official position.

It is also a fact that even being in the briefing room among other reporters and White House staff leads to “off the record” stuff and proximity to anonymous quotes that may well be more truthful than the official statements. But few neutral outlets will be in position to obtain such information because those relationships won’t be formed.

There is a reality at play here in that traditional media doesn’t have the role it once had when Sam Donaldson sat contentiously asking the Reagan administration to explain itself. There should be new consideration given to alternative media sources. But reality is such that the new sources fight to be more one-sided than the other, so it really cannot be done without favoritism.

Despite the fact that CNN doesn’t have the power it once had, it would be beneficial to consider who might better fill that seat. We know one thing. After years of getting barbed questions from Peter Doocy, he was there on behalf of the most-watched cable news network and thus earned a spot. He could throw ever sharper razors, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be kicked out for doing so. He is still there. But those certainties now seem gone for others.

It will only apply to those asking tough questions. The new administration will likely prefer, “Despite what happened, how did it go so perfectly?”

God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and @JasonMiciak

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