“I’m a little nerdy when it comes to reporting…I’m a policy-type nerdy,” a woman from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing Monday, and then in a way that was particularly politically damaging, “So what direction do you suggest me to go in?”
It would be a strange question for journalists, whose job is to master the ability, rather than asking how power can spread its information - raised to Leavitt at a press conference, but this is not a journalist. Kambree Nelson is a “grassroots activist into social media influencer” and a respected ambassador to the “American First Policy Academy” with 600,000 followers on X. A woman on X felt most frustrated last year after she no longer had the moon in the sky. "Why is everyone silent about this?" she posted on X. “They are also quiet about the white sun” (referring to the conspiracy theory of sun changes in recent years).
Actually, this is not a press conference. No, it's a brand new publicity communications conference - Sorry, as described by the official White House YouTube channel, the "New Media" briefing - took place for three consecutive days this week.
Leavitt sticks to the official championship, rather than introducing each meeting as a "influencer briefing", which may be more subtle than giving the game purpose. "I hope there are more people in the traditional media like you." Leavitt answered Nelson. (No doubt.) “The President is doing a lot of amazing things every day that never mentions on cable news…and this is again why we welcome you on social media with followers in an independent voice like you because it’s the best way to get these truths and those facts.”
This is not the White House’s crusade against the so-called legacy media, a term promoted by Elon Musk, who described us as “non-stop PSY OP” in December. Trump has banned the Associated Press from publishing briefings because it refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of the United States" (which I think is also banned now), and the district judge ruled that it was unconstitutional. Last month, the Trump administration removed the permanent seat of the wire service in the news pool. This week, the White House launched its own news-style website, Whitehouse.gov/wire, with only the president's highest coverage, of course.
I can see what they want to do here. First, there is a major issue of representation in the media, the institution (a term that has less meaning than the meaning of “heritance”). A 2022 study by Syracuse University's 1,600 American journalists found that only 3.4% were identified as Republicans, down from 7.1% in 2013 and 18% in 2002, with a number of more than 10 times, more than 36.4% more than 10 times, identified as Democrats (51.7%) (51.7% were “independent”).
Furthermore, in recent (rather than accidental) since the last nine years, there have been many problems in the agency media, especially (rather than accidental) since Trump hit the political stage. From Joe Biden’s fragile masking to explicitly reducing the objectivity of the report to portraying those who questioned the origin of Wuhan’s wet market in -19, it’s conspiracy theorists, some mainstream media often seem to be more interested in pushing a specific agenda.
But it's easy to miss wood of trees: Just because there are some (very much) examples of it that are wrong doesn't mean that institutional media, all its checks and balances and reports on the ground "new media" are often lacking, and can even be slightly compared to these magazines.
And, let's be clear - as Leavitt says, these new "influencer briefs" are not trying to talk to all the media and personalities." I looked at these three and found no left-leaning sockets or personalities. I did find Sean Spicer, one of Leavitt's predecessors. Bitcoin fanatic turned into Trump superfan Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano; and Arynne Wexler, "just a Nonlib girl in the world of Crazylib," her start: "I can prove deportation in Florida: My Uber driver finally speaks English again, so thank you. ”
Treating these "influencers" as if they are quite disrespectful to serious journalists; it is dangerous. And a briefing was held, in Pyongyang, only friendly propaganda communicators might be OK, but it is the capital of the free world. For a president who usually seems to have instinctively mastered good optics, frankly, it's a horrible look.
jemima.kelly@ft.com