Whatever liberal bias mainstream news outlets were accused of harboring, they did not avoid asking President Barack Obama about the top issues of the day, nor did they ignore uncomfortable topics. They asked about staff shake-ups, broken promises (“If you like your doctor …”), foreign policy controversies and setbacks in the war against jihadist terror.
The same cannot be said so far of lap-dog conservative “news” outlets in the Trump presidency. The Washington Post reports:
“On a day when reports about the uncertain future of White House national security adviser Michael Flynn dominated headlines, President Trump skated through an entire news conference Monday without facing a single question about one of his top aides. … The glaring omission immediately struck journalists — the ones who didn’t have opportunities to ask questions, anyway.”
The explanation was simple: “Friendly” (i.e. compliant) right-wing outlets were told to be in attendance and Trump called on them. Daily Caller, founded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and the now-right-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Washington, D.C., affiliate asked anodyne questions.
Accordingly, no embarrassing, timely questions were asked about embattled national security adviser Flynn, about besieged White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus or about senior policy adviser Stephen Miller’s claim that the president’s decisions in immigration “will not be questioned.” How convenient. (You might recall that in the Obama presidency, Daily Caller’s Neil Munro infamously heckled the president.)
Later in the day press secretary Sean Spicer did say, “He’s speaking to the vice president relative to the conversation the vice president had with General Flynn, and also speaking to various other people about what he considers the single most important subject there is: our national security.” That sounded a whole lot less supportive than Kellyanne Conway, who said the president had “full confidence” in Flynn. Hours later Flynn was gone, suggesting that White House aides have no idea what is going on or don’t care to tell what they do know.
What does the Monday press conference tell us? Well, presidents change — and so does the approach of certain propagandist outlets. And remember, the press people in question are not opinion columnists but people who bill themselves as “reporters.”
Welcome to the right-wing media bubble. Designed to counteract some legitimate claims about mainstream media bias — and omissions in coverage — many of these right-wing outlets became cartoonish versions of the mainstream-media caricature they had set out to compete with for viewers and readers.
What’s to be done? Well, legitimate and appropriately independent outlets can call out lap-dog antics. Viewers and readers can decide who asks tough question and who is there to lob softballs. Meanwhile, dogged reporters can raise issues at White House press briefings, gaggles and impromptu avails.
They cannot force the White House, and the president specifically, to answer any more than they can force Sean Spicer to hew to the facts. Reporters nevertheless will do their jobs, as they have been in investigating the White House staff mayhem. They can note the president’s lack of comment. And they can leave it to voters to decide if the president is hiding from questions.
The event underscores that even when the president or high White House staffers appear on cable or network TV shows they dissemble, evade and argue rather than give candid, direct answers. If you’ve ever watched Miller or Conway or other White House spinners you know exactly how impossible it is to pull responsive answers out of them. When they are direct, they are often dishonest.
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