“There was a time, in living memory, when journalists instinctively regarded press secretaries and their ilk as untrustworthy,” Stephen Carter writes.
Nowadays the notion of managing the time and place of announcements is seen only as part of the job. That journalists who cover government so willingly go along is, like the willingness to quote the press secretary, simply a sign of how thoroughly the White House has routed its traditional adversaries in the Fourth Estate.
The Joe Biden aide who forced a reporter to delete his photos at a public event “was only doing what press aides do: showing who’s in control,” Carter writes. “Her only error was doing it so directly.”
Related: Biden’s office forces reporter to delete photos, apologizes | White House press complain about access to president | The dangerous delusions of the White House press corps and the president | Understanding the divide between press secretaries and journalists
