In a remarkable exercise in lack of self-awareness, in his New Yorker column Jonathan Chait takes exception to the new rules of decorum promulgated by the Trump Administration:
Interactions between the media and the White House are a form of democracy theater. The give-and-take is a tangible and living sign of the fact that in a republic, the president is not a monarch but is simply a citizen like everybody else. In authoritarian regimes, the palpably cowed news media treats leaders with a deference that communicates their inviolable status.
There is nothing whatever democratic about the White House Press corps. No one voted for them. No democratic process whatever was involved in their getting their seats.
The comparison he gives, Question Time in the United Kingdom, is remarkably dissimilar to White House press briefings. All of the MPs who take part in it have stood for election and the ministers of whom questions are asked are appointed and elected from within their political parties. In White House press briefings unelected and unanswerable reporters are asking questions of the president who was actually elected.
Presidents are under no obligation to give the press briefings at all. They do it when it suits their purposes. How does it serve the president’s purpose to be subjected to an inquisition by hostile camera hounds?
I believe Woodrow Wilson held the first Presidential press briefing, before that it was clearly a fascist state.
If I were Trump, I would simply stop holding them. It’s not in his interest to help the WH staff land jobs in the next Democratic administration.
“WH press pool”
I first became aware that the press’ objective was simply to giv’m the devil when I watched Sam Donaldson. It hasn’t improved.
I’d like to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving, and relate a sign of the times to you. Here in FL the hurricanes have caused quite a bit of wildlife to migrate from wooded areas to more populated ones. This time of year is a particularly dangerous one for the turkeys you see from time to time. However, they are clever and have a well developed sense of self preservation, many now donning signs claiming to be 1/1024 bald eagle.
It would be interesting if the President could/would debate lawmakers like they do in House of Commons – but it is not part of the American tradition.
As for Acosta and CNN, its a good reminder that the best journalists report the news vs being the news.
I will disagree a bit here. Trump serves the American people, we dont serve him. I think that all presidents ought to have an obligation to communicate with the public, and I think part of that should be done through an adversarial press. Our press are mostly a bunch of cringing pussies.
That is what ought to happen. In reality, the POTUS has become essentially royalty and I dont think there is much we can legally do about it. No follow up questions? Yup, he is royalty.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone else too. I hate to do this, but I am going to go ahead and rate the dinner I am making an A++. Best dinner ever made by anyone, anywhere, ever, ever. Eat your heart out James Beard and Julia Child!
Steve
In the UK the PM is explicitly the head of his or her party. Here in the States it’s just implicit. In principle the president is not merely the party leader of the majority party.
But note that the president combines the role of head of state and head of government. They debate the PM, the head of government. The notion of debating the queen (the head of state) would be horrifying.
Well, I agree the press has an important role to play. But then why do smart guys like Acosta bait Trump and try to get one up on him. If Acosta were really that smart, he would schmooz Trump first, and then ask the question, like the press did with Obama. Acosta’s smart enough to do that, but he can’t! He’s chosen sides! When he crosses that partisan line, he’s ceased to be the press and Trump is right to be angered to be questioned by a partisan.
Yes, I agree the President’s role as head of state and the related idea that he is independent of congress to a large degree is why Question Time is not happening in the US.
So that means it’s the Press who picks up that role; except incentives are not as aligned. ie opposition MP’s have incentives to grill the PM. Journalists don’t always want to grill the President.
” The notion of debating the queen (the head of state) would be horrifying.”
As I said, POTUS is royalty.
Steve
You lack understanding of history and common sense if you think that democracy requires that the people need a vote. In the first place, the USSA has no democracy, but instead a republic or a representative democracy.
In the first decades, the Senate was anything but democratic and it still is far less so than the imperfect democracy of the House. The electoral college insures that our president is not democratically elected. If he were, he would be Hillary.
There’s a very good argument that Walmart, Goodwill and Amazon are far more democratic than our gummint.
The country would be better off if a press corp was constitutionally empowered and required to hate the President; if Trump gets upset at one of them that just means the others aren’t doing their jobs properly.
The Presidency isn’t their to serve the President’s purpose, it’s their to serve the people. In a functional Republic the President would live in fear of the Press.
I’m trying to figure out how your image of the press/media as a fourth branch of government would work. Are you saying that President Obama had an obligation to pack the White House pool with people from Fox and the Weekly Standard? CNN and the NYT were friendly to him not adversarial.
C’mon, Ben. Setting aside that the Acosta’s of the world are really just acting out of ego and seeking professional gain. Which would be better?:
1) Sir, your decision to not sanction Saudi Arabia appears to be a failure to stand for American values, conceding instead to commercial and strategic interests. Could you walk us through your decision making process in evaluating these competing interests? (Perhaps following up with the notion that each path is not mutually exclusive, or a challenge to, say, the notion that SA is the only strategic partner available to the US in the Middle East).
2) Sir, doesn’t your failure to cut off ties to Saudi Arabia prove you are an immoral, soulless fuck who would sell your mother out for a nickel, you no good piece of shit. (Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat……)
Yet this what the press has become. One idiot reporter yesterday tried guilting Trump for taking soldiers away from their families to be at the border on Thanksgiving.
The problem, in my view, isn’t that the press lacks spine or is insufficiently adversarial. The problem is a lack of competence.
Haidt, like the White House Press pool, is conflating privilege with rights. Acosta has no more right to to a seat to a POTUS press conference than I do.
I wouldn’t say the WHPP lack competence. They ARE competent at what they are good at: asking gotcha questions of political opponents and tossing cottonball questions at political allies. What they are incompetent at, partly because they have never had the training, is asking good penetrating questions that would make the POTUS actually explain to them what he is trying to accomplish.