The White House is currently drafting revisions in the service of protecting its admitted diversity hire, Karine Jean-Pierre, from any questions that might make her uncomfortable or make the puppet she represents to look bad.
Via Daily Caller:
The White House released new requirements Friday outlining which journalists are allowed in the briefing room and presidential events, and warning about unprofessional behavior.
The new rules require journalists to submit a letter to gain access to the White House grounds with information about their employment, mandating that reporters work for “an organization whose principal business is news dissemination.”
The rule change comes as the administration has been facing repeated outbursts in the briefing room from reporters like Simon Ateba, and comes days after World Press Freedom Day. Journalists have called out White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for not giving fair representation in the briefing room and the Biden administration has faced criticism from the press corps over unfair access to White House events.
That’s called Democracy™.
The rule change is apparently meant, as the Daily Caller notes, to target heroic African reporter Simon Ateba. Ateba has clashed repeatedly with Karine Jean-Pierre, who refuses to call on him or any of the other back-benchers who are not from big-name legacy media outlets.
Instead of just taking a single question from him, which would take an entire thirty seconds, and moving on to the more compliant members of the press pool, Karine does the whole “don’t make me turn this car around” routine whenever Ateba complains about being ignored for months at a time.
The White House press briefing opens in total chaos as Simon Ateba berates Karine Jean-Pierre for not calling on him in months.
The cast of Apple TV+'s 'Ted Lasso' awkwardly stand behind KJP as Ateba made a scene. pic.twitter.com/hnZeUtjtMa
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 20, 2023
It’s very poor optics, especially for a White House that purportedly deeply cherishes Diversity™ as one of its core values, to ostracize a foreign person of color like that, which is why Simon Ateba is Karine’s kryptonite.
As for the rest of the “journalists” granted access to the White House Press Briefing room, by and large, they might technically fit the definition of the term in that they are tasked with reporting on the news of the day, but, in effect, they are more accurately termed “stenographers,” like their North Korean counterparts who insist that the Dear Leader never defecates.
Their job is to ask a softball question pre-approved by their editors, jot down the obfuscating (usually nonsensical) response issued by the Press Secretary — who herself reads her talking points from pre-written notes — and then disseminate that propaganda through the de facto state media outlets they work for as if it is fact because it came from a supposedly authoritative source. There is no substantive analysis or critique.
In fact, Jean-Pierre rarely ever actually answers the questions posed, instead resorting over and over to her canned response which she tends to repeat up to a dozen times in a single press briefing.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member