One of my favorite mental exercises of the 2024 campaign was considering what the dying news media would do if their backbreaking work to legitimize and elect Kamala Harris failed.
We’ve since learned the answer. They moved on as if they didn’t just blow their remaining credibility telling the public the exact opposite of what was true. That’s why it’s so fun to see them powerlessly moan about this White House politely informing them that things are going to have to change in the way they’re permitted access to the president and his administration.
Some members of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which traditionally organizes the on-site press pool, are reportedly considering “a potential Civil Rights era-style ‘sit-in’ protest” in the White House briefing room. The little revolt idea comes after an administration official told Axios the White House is considering exerting control over the briefing room seating assignments, which are currently managed by the WHCA. It’s sure to be the 21st Century’s Selma march.
The WHCA on Monday released a snooty statement telling the White House to “abandon this wrong-headed effort and show the American people they’re not afraid to explain their policies and field questions from an independent media free from government control.”
I hope reading that didn’t result in anyone’s eyes getting stuck to the back of their head.
This is a ridiculous dispute over suggestions from the White House that maybe the public would benefit from an administration that engages with a wider variety of media outlets and doesn’t consistently prioritize the same ones. If the White House did that, it would necessarily mean no singular outlet, whether it be the New York Times, Fox News, or some Internet alternative, would be entitled to more access than any other. In other words, it would bring more democracy to the media.
But the dying media hate the notion of democratizing the briefing room because then they can’t control it. And if they can’t control it, then they can’t give the most prominent seats in the briefing room with the same tired faces, from the same tired outfits, where they each ask the same tired questions.
Recall last week’s wall-to-wall coverage of “Signalgate,” wherein some variation of, “Was the information on the chat classified?” was asked of the president and administration officials roughly 100 billion times. Who, outside of the dying media, is served by that? They get to be on cable news posing as relentless truth seekers, a vision that impresses themselves, and that’s the sole purpose of it all. Meanwhile, influential podcasts and online publications are debating the merits and effects of the president’s executive actions, policy directives, opposing court orders, tariffs, deportations, Greenland, the Panama Canal, the shrinking of federal agencies (my personal favorite), and on and on.
A lot of interesting things are happening, and people who don’t work for CNN, the Washington Post, or NBC are far more engaged in those things. And, it turns out, they have very large audiences. We saw that reality assert itself in the 2024 election.
In addition to likely assuming control over the seating assignments, the White House has also taken over the responsibility of rotating out the news outlets who travel with the president and get to be included in areas with limited space, like the Oval Office. That was also for the purpose of broadening the array of publications and news content creators who are represented in those pools.
Dictating who gets to be in the White House, where they get to sit, and who gets to travel with the president is not something the dying media are entitled to. It was a privilege they were granted and nothing good has come of it for a very long time. Losing it is a small form of accountability they get to endure for their ongoing corruption and deceit.
Jesus Christ is King
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