If you’re a reporter with a tough question for the White House press secretary, Joe Biden’s staff wouldn’t mind knowing ahead of time.
According to three sources aware of the case, as well as written communications reviewed by The Daily Beast, the new president’s communications officers have already interrogated reporters on occasion to see what questions they plan to ask new White House press secretary Jen Psaki when summoned. during briefings.
The requests caused concern among the White House press corps, whose members, like many journalists, are sensitive to the perception that they coordinate with political communications executives.
A reporter raised the issue last Friday during an informal appeal from the White House Correspondent Association Zoom. According to multiple sources, leaders at the meeting advised print reporters to push back against requests from the White House press team to get questions ahead of time, or simply not respond to questions from the Biden team.
“While it is a relief to see the briefings return, especially when it comes to factual information, the press cannot really do its job in the briefing room when the White House picks and chooses the questions they want,” said a correspondent from the White House. . “That’s not really a free press at all.”
It pissed off enough reporters for people to flag it for the [WHCA] for them to deal with it, ‘said another expert source.
The WHCA Zoom call was unofficial, and Daily Beast employees participated in the talk. Those staff members had no input at all in this story. The reporter who wrote this story was not bound by the terms of the agreement. All information in this article has been collected independently and without the knowledge of his colleagues.
Since Biden took office two weeks ago, the White House press team has visibly tried to draw contrasts with the Trump press team, which had a notoriously antagonistic relationship with reporters, eventually scrapping the traditional daily briefing altogether.
During her first press release, Psaki pledged to restore regular briefings, including those with health officials from the highest administration, adding that she had a “ deep respect for the role of a free and independent press ” and that they “ shared a common goal, namely share accurate information with the American people. “
Biden’s press team did not deny that staffers had questioned reporters. But the White House claimed it has tried to maintain a better relationship with the press force than the previous administration, and has tried to contact reporters directly to avoid appearing to be dodging questions during briefings.
“Our goal is to make the daily briefing as useful and informative as possible for reporters and the public,” said a White House spokesman. Part of achieving that goal means consulting regularly with the reporters who will be in the briefing room to understand how the White House can be most helpful in giving them the information they need. That two-way conversation is an important part of keeping the American people informed about how the government is serving them. “
This practice is not completely unheard of in previous administrations, departments, or federal agencies. For example, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former President Donald Trump’s White House press secretary, was known to have asked certain news outlets about their questions ahead of some of Trump’s major or high profile press conferences or events, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. . . Communications officials during the Bush and Obama years would ask reporters the crux of questions ahead of time if they wanted to interview cabinet secretaries.
Under previous administrations, many White House reporters met informally in the morning to talk to press secretaries. During these interactions, White House communications officers could get a sense of the topics reporters were interested in that day, and would prepare for questions later in the afternoon during televised briefings.
Eric Schultz, a former deputy press secretary in Obama’s White House, said the new comms team was reestablishing the briefing process to normal. Finding out what reporters focus on, he said, was the standard procedure in most pre-Trump White Houses to reduce the number of questions that go unanswered during televised briefings.
‘This is communication work from the textbook. The briefing becomes pointless if the press secretary has to ask questions repeatedly, rather than come equipped to discuss what journalists are reporting on, ”he said. “In a non-covid environment, this would happen during informal conversations throughout the day in the lower and upper press. One of the few benefits to reporters hovering over your desk all day is that you get a sense of what they’re working on very quickly. “
Despite concerns some reporters had about the behind-the-scenes questions of the Biden team, Psaki’s tenure has so far received positive reviews from many media outlets. The Washington Post told readers to prepare for “reality-based” press conferences, which Forbes already described as “must-see TV.” The New York Times noted that during her first briefing she had provided an ‘olive branch’ to reporters, which Vox described as a ‘breath of fresh air’.
–With additional reporting by Asawin Suebsaeng.