Beautiful bastards, hope you had a fantastic Tuesday. Welcome back to not technically the philip defranco show as mentioned last week
PDS is on a hiatus this week. But today and on Thursday. We have solo focus story today
We're gonna be taking a look at White House press briefings because seemingly over the past year and a half
They have almost completely disappeared or as the New York Times put it White House
Press briefings during the Trump administration have gone from must-see TV
- practically canceled after just two seasons and on-camera press briefings have actually become so rare under Trump that the administration currently owns the record
For the longest time span without one but who or what is to blame for the lack of briefing?
well
It kind of depends on who you ask some of the president's supporters claimed that the press treats Sarah Sanders the current White House press
Secretary unfairly and that's a sentiment that Trump has echo January. We saw the president tweet recent
Sarah Sanders does not go to the quote podium much anymore
Is that the press covers her so rudely and inaccurately in particular certain members of the press?
I told her not to bother the word gets out
Anyway, most will never cover us fairly and hence the term fake news
But others have claimed the White House is trying to be less transparent and accessible by holding fewer briefings and actually after Trump's previous tweet
That we mentioned the White House Correspondents Association releases statement of their own which read this retreat from transparency and accountability sets a terrible precedent
Being able to question the press secretary or other senior government officials publicly helps the news media
Tell Americans what their most powerful representatives are doing in their name
So who is right is this White House less accessible than other?
Administration's or does the media really get more heated with Trump's press secretaries and other administration's pass
well
There is data that suggests that neither those reasons actually tell the full story right now Trump's press secretary is Sarah Sanders
But Sanders wasn't Trump's first choice for the role as you may remember when Trump took office in January of 2017
Sean Spicer was tapped for that role and while Spicer held the position White House
Press briefings were held pretty regularly Spicer averaging around 17 briefings a month
Which was on par with Obama's last press secretary Josh Earnest but instead of delivering news on policy or the president's schedule which was kind
Of typical under past presidents Spicer's performances sometimes became the headline
for example
There was that time where Spicer made headlines after he insisted that Trump's executive order which barred people from seven muslim-majority
Nations from entering the United States was not a travel ban this despite the fact that the president had directly referred to the executive order
as a ban on Twitter and he might remember SNL made a pretty famous sketch about the incident
The travel ban is not a ban which makes it not a ban
But you just called it a ban because I'm using your words you said ban you said ban
Now I'm saying it back. The president tweeted and I quote if the ban were announced with a one week notice exactly
You just said that he's quoting you. It's your words
It was also that time right out of the gate where he made this bold claim
This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration
Period both in person and around the globe period. Although regarding that Spicer did eventually tell the New York Times
He regretted making that statement, but with incidents like that. It was under Spicer White House press briefings became must-see TV
I mean just a month into the job Spicer's briefings averaged four point three
million viewers on major cable news networks when Spicer was on TV audiences across Fox News MSNBC
CNN they grew by an average of 10 percent
in fact by February of 2017 the press briefings even gained so much attention that they
Outperformed long-running soap operas like General Hospital and the bold and the beautiful according to a study Fox MSNBC and CNN each aired at least
93% of Spicer's first 48 press briefings. I mean we're just talking wild numbers to make a comparison. So you understand
What a big deal
this is. President Obama's last press secretary Josh Earnest CNN Fox and MSNBC only televised 2% of his briefing
But of course Spicer as we already know is no longer Trump's press secretary in June of 2017
Spicer started to make fewer appearances you had these rumors starting off that Trump wasn't happy with him and then a month later
Spicer announced his resignation and it was reported that Spicer had left his position after telling Trump
He strongly disagreed with the appointment of Anthony Scaramouche as communications director and then what followed as yet Sarah Sanders being named spices
Replacement and shortly after the briefings start to become scarcer from January 2018 to November of that same year Sanders only gave 59 briefings
And once again for comparison's sake during those same months in 2010 Barack Obama's press secretary
Robert Gibbs held 95 briefings and in 2002 during that same period george
W bush's press secretary Ari Fleischer held 85 briefing
But then that brings us back to last year where Sarah Sanders had fewer press briefings than any press secretary since briefings were first televised
in
1995 and in recent months there have even been rumors that Sanders will end briefings altogether and some pundits have speculated that Sanders would make
This move because reporters have been quote grandstanding at press conferences
In other words some feel that reporters are trying to cause a scene by getting into heated debates with Sanders that would make for good
TV well, I will say it is definitely not hard to find clips of Sanders getting in a tense back and forth with reporters
There's data that shows that Sanders doesn't actual
Average the most contentious exchanges in a press briefings according to data released in October from the American presidency project
it's actually Josh earnest who holds that title project counted contentious exchanges as quotes all statements suggesting doubts about
Honesty completeness bias or deflecting and refusing to answer questions Earnest averaged 13 for briefing and Sanders averaged a little more than 10
So yes, well Sanders may get into heated back-and-forth
These tense exchanges are not unprecedented and they're not at a record level now pundits on the opposite side of the spectrum
They argue that the White House is limiting press briefings in an attempt to be less accessible
But on that note Sarah Sanders has claimed the donald trump is one of the most accessible presidents that we have ever had
So what does the data say?
well
It's kind of complicated Martha Joint Kumar a political science professor at Towson University
published a study about the past six presidents and their exchanges with reporters during the first 18 months of their presidency and in this study
Kumar found that Trump actually had the least amount of solo press conferences compared to Obama
GW Clinton Bush Senior and Reagan during the first 18 months of each president's first term
but Kumar's study also found that Donald Trump had the second most short question and answer sessions and interviews during that same time period
So the data there show is kind of a mixed bag Trump seemed more likely to stop on the White House lawn to answer questions
But less likely to hold a solo conference with reporters
But one thing Kumar study did not acknowledge was Trump's preferential treatment when it comes to the interviews
He's willing to give by October of 2017 Trump had given 18
Interviews to Fox and during that same time period Trump only gave two interviews to NBC one to CBS and zero to CNN another thing
Kumar's study didn't look into was the use of social media and particularly the use of Twitter although on that note
Twitter was created in 2006 Obama is the only other president to have used the platform during his presidency
but also regarding that the way in which Trump and Obama used Twitter has differed Trump for example has used Twitter to make announcements that
The Obama administration would have typically made in press briefings
For example Trump has announced changes to a staff on Twitter by the time this video goes up
There are probably newer examples
but you might remember in March of last year when Trump announced that Rex Tillerson was no longer Secretary of State in a tweet that
Read Mike Pompeo director of the CIA will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job
Thank you to Rex Tillerson for a service Jeana hospital will become the new director of the CIA and the first woman so chosen
congratulations to all. Trump has also announced major changes in policy on Twitter like in July of 2017 when he made that announcement about
Transgender individuals in the military I mention that not to denounce or applaud any individual announcements
But as a way to say, you know, it's hard to make a complete one-to-one comparison
If you look at press or in this case Twitter as information delivery devices, it is important to keep in mind
We are in a time of different possibilities and different avenues
So with that said with Trump taking on a larger role in making announcements himself through Twitter
It leaves us with a question. Do we even need White House press briefing?
well
Sarah Sanders has suggested that maybe we don't need them as much as they have been used in the past in an interview with Fox
News in September she said this I always think if you can hear directly from the president and the press has a chance to ask
the President of the United States
Questions directly that's infinitely better than talking to me
But at the same time you have former, press secretaries who have argued that getting rid of press briefings
Maybe isn't a good thing Dana Perino who was press secretary under
George W Bush told NPR that just having regular briefings can actually impact decision-making amongst cabinet members internally when
The cabinet or the staff knows that the press secretary has to go out and answer questions from the press
it can force decision making or
Consensus, but ultimately that brings us to the part of the video where I passed the question off to you guys
Do you think we should get rid of White House press briefings?
Do you think that reporters have been trying to grandstand to make headlines to create must-see TV, or they're just trying to question things
Right, I guess do you see this as streamlining or we're hiding and lacking transparency really any and all thoughts on this?
I'd love to hear from you in those comments down below
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But with that said, I love your faces. I hope you have a fantastic day
Of course
Remember the pds is on break this week while I'm on a small vacation
But I'll see you on Thursday with another brand new deep dive