Blade_Runner wrote:
White House ‘working behind the scenes’ with media to get positive coverage
The White House has been secretly begging news organizations to give “favorable” coverage to President Biden rather than focusing on his failings, according to a report.
The administration is “not happy” with the unflattering headlines and coverage of the supply-chain disaster and handling of the economy — and so “has been working behind the scenes trying to reshape coverage in its favor,” CNN’s Reliable Sources said.
Senior White House and administration officials “have been briefing major newsrooms over the past week,” a source told the outlet’s media reporter Oliver Darcy.
The meetings have been led by a trio of administration officials: National Economic Council deputy directors David Kamin and Bharat Ramamurti, as well as ports envoy John Porcari, Darcy wrote in his newsletter.
“I’m told the conversations have been productive, with anchors and reporters and producers getting to talk with the officials,” Darcy wrote.
Reliable Sources has itself been leading the way, with its latest tweet on Monday about how the White House is “absolutely right” to have grievances about brutal coverage of Biden’s time in office.
Darcy’s report about the secret talks also linked to the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who recently wrote an op-ed titled, “The media treats Biden as badly as — or worse than — Trump. Here’s proof.”
In it, he pointed to data analysis reportedly showing that “Biden’s press for the past four months has been as bad as — and for a time worse than — the coverage Trump received for the same four months of 2020.”
He said that the findings during a time when Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted “confirmed my fear: My colleagues in the media are serving as accessories to the murder of democracy.”
Milbank admitted that “Biden has had his troubles,” mentioning the Delta variant, Afghanistan and inflation, but not numerous other scandals that have seen the president’s ratings plummet.
The columnist appeared on CNN Monday to further push his theories — admitting that the negative press was bipartisan, having ramped up from the spectacular failings of the doomed withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The left-wing media is tough on him … He has no real support,” Milbank said of Biden, showing his own feelings as he hailed the commander-in-chief as a leader “trying to restore the organs of democracy.”
His views knocking the media were — unsurprisingly — shared by the White House, with chief of staff Ron Klain sharing the Washington paper’s op-ed, writing, “Submitted for your consideration.”
Reports of the secret PR mission quickly had the administration roasted online.
“Biden’s policies are so popular that he’s begging the MSM to do a better job at lying about it,” one person wrote on Twitter.
Another wrote, “BIDEN’S HANDLERS MEETING WITH THE MSM ASKING FOR A BETTER SPIN ON HIS POLICIES AND A MORE POSITIVE IMAGE OF HIM. ALL THEY DO IS LIE.”
Others suggested that the spin was “the opposite” by being favorable to the president, noting the lack of media coverage of The Post’s numerous scoops on first son Hunter Biden.
“Had they not protected [Biden] and his con artiste son for months we wouldn’t be here now,” one person complained, while another urged the media to “strap their balls back on and show this pathetic president for exactly what he is.”
i b White House ‘working behind the scenes’ with... (
show quote)