On Wednesday morning as controversy swirled over the president abruptly firing his FBI chief amid an investigation of possible ties between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, the president met in the Oval Office with none other than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
But the meeting was closed press, meaning the rotating pool of photographers, reporters and camera operators who follow the president weren’t allowed in. Yet photos of the three laughing and smiling were soon published by the Russian state news agency TASS. The Russian foreign ministry also tweeted photos of the meeting.
Asked by the print pooler why members of the Russian media were allowed into the meeting but no U.S. press was permitted, a White House official said, “Our official photographer and their official photographer were present, that’s it,” meaning TASS was considered the Russians’ “official photographer.”
Controversy over access to meetings with the president is not new. Barack Obama’s White House was widely criticized for holding closed press meetings, only to later share photos shot by the president’s official photographer Pete Souza. In 2013, the White House Correspondents’ Association said that practice amounted to establishing “the White House’s own Soviet-style news service.”
On Wednesday, media outlets had to contend with how to present photos that were clearly newsworthy but were also state-sponsored handouts from a foreign government.
……
One White House correspondent, speaking on background, remarked on the unusual nature of the entire morning: None of the press were alerted that Kislyak would also be at the meeting until photos from the Russian embassy emerged. At one point the pool was hastily assembled at one point for what they thought was a photo spray ending the meeting with Lavrov, but as the press filed into the Oval Office they discovered instead former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger sitting there.
The chummy visit by such a high-ranking Russian official is particularly unusual, the correspondent said, because it comes just months after U.S. intelligence services concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections.
- Discussion
-
Trump's meeting with Lavrov & Kislyak was closed to the press. But a Russian state news agency posted photos of them https://t.co/sbuwfzkTYp pic.twitter.com/RNJveECyZ2
— POLITICO (@politico) May 11, 2017
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.