{"id":989890,"date":"2021-11-09T13:30:06","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T18:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=989890"},"modified":"2021-11-09T13:30:14","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T18:30:14","slug":"5-ways-joe-biden-ducks-the-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/5-ways-joe-biden-ducks-the-press\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways Joe Biden Ducks The Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2F5-ways-joe-biden-ducks-the-press%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=989890&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>President Joe Biden has a love-hate relationship with the media: They love his administration, his policies, and his party, but his overly secretive administration rejects the openness necessary to let the public scrutinize his policies. As recent polls show, a growing number of Americans believe President Biden is implementing an unpopular agenda in a halting and &nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/poll.qu.edu\/poll-release?releaseid=3824\">incompetent<\/a> manner.<\/p>\n<p>So, although the Biden administration received <a href=\"https:\/\/www.journalism.org\/2021\/04\/28\/at-100-day-mark-coverage-of-biden-has-been-slightly-more-negative-than-positive-varied-greatly-by-outlet-type\/\">more positive media coverage<\/a> during its first 60 days than any president in the last three decades, the administration has cloistered the president away from the press and attempted to control the narrative through a number of easily identifiable tools. Here are five of them:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Holding the fewest number of press briefings of any recent president<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Joe Biden\u2019s 2020 presidential campaign \u2014 which consisted largely of hiding in his basement \u2014 proved so successful that he extended it to his presidency. After being elected president, Biden waited longer than any president in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wionews.com\/world\/biden-to-hold-first-press-conference-after-breaking-100-year-record-without-one-372963\">100 years<\/a> before holding his first press conference,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2021\/03\/25\/what-expect-president-joe-biden-first-press-conference\/6971426002\/\">64 days<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, he has largely taken a powder at the podium. President Biden has held a grand total of seven press conferences thus far in the first year of his presidency, according to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/statistics\/data\/presidential-news-conferences\">&nbsp;the American Presidency Project<\/a>&nbsp;at the University of California Santa Barbara. That includes four solo press conferences and three joint conferences with other world leaders.<\/p>\n<p>Seven press conferences is one of the lowest numbers of media availabilities of any president since the 1920s. President Ronald Reagan held only six events in his first year \u2014 although he was hospitalized part of the time due to an assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr. (who was recently <a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/john-hinckley-jr-reagan-assasination-attempt-granted-unconditional-release-171410650.html\">granted release<\/a>). President Gerald Ford also had six press conferences in his first year in office \u2014 but his first year began when Richard Nixon retired on August 8, 1974, so Ford held more than one press conference a month.<\/p>\n<p>If you can\u2019t ask the president a question, you can\u2019t make him admit that he has no answers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Pre-screening questions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before the Biden administration will answer any questions, it would really like to see them in advance. The source is unimpeachable: The nation\u2019s leading reporters broke this story themselves during a White House Correspondents Association Zoom call in February. The Daily Beast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/white-house-reporters-say-biden-team-asked-them-for-questions-in-advance\">quoted<\/a> one such journalist:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWhile it\u2019s a relief to see briefings return, particularly with a commitment to factual information, the press can\u2019t really do its job in the briefing room if the White House<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Joe Biden has a love-hate relationship with the media: They love his administration, his policies, and his party, but his overly secretive administration rejects the openness necessary to let the public scrutinize his policies. As recent polls show, a growing number of Americans believe President Biden is implementing an unpopular agenda in a halting and \u00a0incompetent manner.So, although the Biden administration received more positive media coverage during its first 60 days than any president in the last three decades, the administration has cloistered the president away from the press and attempted to control the narrative through a number of easily identifiable tools. Here are five of them:1. Holding the fewest number of press briefings of any recent presidentJoe Biden\u2019s 2020 presidential campaign \u2014 which consisted largely of hiding in his basement \u2014 proved so successful that he extended it to his presidency. After being elected president, Biden waited longer than any president in 100 years before holding his first press conference,\u00a064 days.Since then, he has largely taken a powder at the podium. President Biden has held a grand total of seven press conferences thus far in the first year of his presidency, according to\u00a0the American Presidency Project\u00a0at the University of California Santa Barbara. That includes four solo press conferences and three joint conferences with other world leaders.Seven press conferences is one of the lowest numbers of media availabilities of any president since the 1920s. President Ronald Reagan held only six events in his first year \u2014 although he was hospitalized part of the time due to an assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr. (who was recently granted release). President Gerald Ford also had six press conferences in his first year in office \u2014 but his first year began when Richard Nixon retired on August 8, 1974, so Ford held more than one press conference a month.If you can\u2019t ask the president a question, you can\u2019t make him admit that he has no answers.2. Pre-screening questionsBefore the Biden administration will answer any questions, it would really like to see them in advance. The source is unimpeachable: The nation\u2019s leading reporters broke this story themselves during a White House Correspondents Association Zoom call in February. The Daily Beast quoted one such journalist:\u201cWhile it\u2019s a relief to see briefings return, particularly with a commitment to factual information, the press can\u2019t really do its job in the briefing room if the White House is picking and choosing the questions they want,\u201d one White House correspondent said. \u201cThat\u2019s not really a free press at all.\u201d\u201cThis is a totally normal procedure \u2014 if you live in a banana republic,\u201d said Chris Barron\u00a0in February.A White House spokesperson justified the tactic by telling Fox News that the administration only engages in the practice \u201cto make the daily briefing as useful and informative as possible for both reporters and the public,\u201d as well as \u201cto understand how the White House can be most helpful in getting them the information they need.\u201d Reporters turning over their questions to Jen Psaki\u2019s PR team ahead of time \u201cis an important part of keeping the American people updated about how government is serving them,\u201d the spokesperson said.That\u2019s one way of looking at it. Another would be to say the White House wants to avoid embarrassment, put the perfect amount of English on its spin, and prepare the perfect amount of TNT for a \u201cPsaki bomb.\u201d3. Calling on a select list of reportersPresident Biden has regularly opened his few press conferences the same way. After concluding his prepared remarks, he takes a list out of his pocket and reads the names of the reporters he\u2019s been instructed to call on. The most recent example came during the president\u2019s trip to the G20 in Rome on Sunday. After his prepared remarks, he said, \u201cAnd now I\u2019m happy to take some questions. And I\u2019m told I should start with AP: Zeke Miller. Zeke, you have a question?\u201dJoe Biden calls on reporter from pre-approved list: \u201cI\u2019m told I should start with AP, Zeke Miller&#8221; pic.twitter.com\/n7K2QtBdnq\u2014 RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 31, 2021\u201cThat was Biden\u2019s first press conference in 108 days, and he only took 8 questions from an even fewer number of reporters from a preapproved list,\u201d observed Republican National Committee Rapid Response Director Tommy Pigott.The practice is anything but new. During a June press event in Geneva, Biden said, \u201cI\u2019ll take your questions and, as usual, folks, they gave me a list of the people I\u2019m going to call on.\u201d Again, while discussing his withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden said, \u201cThe first person I was instructed to call on Kelly O\u2019Donnell of NBC.\u201dMore concerning, although the president sometimes likes to take on Fox News\u2019 Peter Doocey, his preapproved list frequently contains no conservative media outlet. The questions regularly go to the Associated Press, PBS\/NPR, CNN, and the Big Three news networks, all of which have a dependably left-of-center bias.So, President Biden will only speak to you if his administration puts your preapproved question on his preapproved list. It\u2019s hard to get much more controlling than that \u2014 but the Biden administration manages.4. Circling back to control the narrative\/quotationsThe Biden administration has regularly exploited a tool that allows its officials to delete embarrassing quotations and frame the exact words that appear in your newsfeed. It\u2019s known as \u201cbackground with quote approval.\u201d\u00a0Here\u2019s how it works: Reporters can ask White House officials anything they like \u2014 and the official will answer \u2026 but the reporter cannot quote the person directly. Readers view stories that cite anonymous or unnamed sources with less trust than stories that include a direct quotation from a named source. But journalists who wish to attribute the information to a specific human being within the administration can only do so if they let the administration approve \u2014 or veto \u2014 the exact wording of the quotation.The chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Peter Barker, called this tactic\u00a0\u201ca pernicious, insidious, awful practice that reporters should resist.\u201d He added, \u201cThe White House realized: \u2018Hey \u2026 we can now control what is in [journalists\u2019] stories by refusing to allow them to use anything without our approval.\u201d5. Leaving major announcements without taking questionsIf all else fails, the president has a final way to limit interaction with reporters: ignore them. The president has regularly concluded his public comments about controversial topics\u2014ranging from the fall of Kabul to COVID-19 vaccinations. Sometimes he selectively chooses to engage or ignore the press, depending on whether the question serves his agenda. For instance, after a FEMA briefing in August, he said, \u201cI\u2019m not supposed to take any questions, but go ahead.\u201d But when he realized that Bloomberg News reporter Jennifer Jacobs wanted to ask about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, Biden retorted, \u201cI\u2019m not going to answer Afghanistan now.\u201d\u00a0Then he walked away.The Heritage Foundation described photos of President Biden turning his back on reporters as \u201can apt image,\u201d because \u201c[e]very time he concludes remarks and quickly turns his back to reporters, Biden is leaving the lasting impression that he is also turning his back on the American people.\u201dIt\u2019s an apt image presented by an administration that is usually very concerned about visuals and symbolismEvery time he concludes remarks and quickly turns his back to reporters, Biden is leaving the lasting impression that he is also turning his back on the American people pic.twitter.com\/R61eEIdL2h\u2014 Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) October 19, 2021Again, if you can\u2019t ask the president a question, you can\u2019t make him admit that he has no answers. And the Biden administration\u2019s handling of the media makes clear, they believe the president has no answers that can withstand meaningful scrutiny.The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-989890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}