The press briefings have gone dark.
The briefings, regularly conducted four or five times a week in both the Obama administration and in the early weeks of the Trump administration, have been held far less frequently of late.
And when the White House does give a briefing now, it’s increasingly conducted off-camera.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer has made just seven total appearances before the media in the 18 working days since President Trump came back from his first international trip, an unusually low number for a press secretary.
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The White House’s decision to conduct an increasing number of off-camera briefings could help the administration assert more control over its message, officials say.
Spicer has said the move will deprive reporters of the explosive exchanges they crave.
But that drastic break with tradition has infuriated the press corps and split Trump’s allies, who believe the White House is missing out on an opportunity to directly reach the public without having his message filtered through a media they see as biased against him.
“The White House should stick to live, televised press briefings,” said Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, who is close friends with Trump. “There is so much media spin and this affords them a tremendous opportunity to speak directly to the American people unedited, as so many people today are tuning in to those press conferences to hear directly from the White House.”
Spicer drew huge ratings for his near-daily on-camera briefings in the administration’s early days, attention that Trump relished at the time.
But the White House has cut back drastically since the president returned from his trip abroad in late May.
When Spicer does speak to the press, he has dramatically altered the way he engages. The once-combative press secretary now gives only clipped responses before moving on to new questions, drawing complaints from reporters about the lack of information coming from the White House.
In between the increasingly rare briefings, the administration has scattered Air Force One gaggles and off-camera briefings in which reporters are often barred from even broadcasting audio recordings of the proceedings.
Sanders was scheduled to brief reporters under those rules at the White House on Thursday — a move that would deprive both news consumers and public officials of the ability to see or hear from Trump’s designated spokespeople.
But the White House eventually agreed to allow television and radio networks to air sound from the briefing after it was over.
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Even some at Trump’s favorite network — Fox News — have bristled at the changes.
“We need live press conferences. They have to be documented,” Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum said Thursday.
But so far, the administration appears pleased with the results.
“We will never be intimidated by the dishonest media corporations that will do anything to get people to watch their screens,” Trump declared at his Cedar Rapids, Iowa, rally on Wednesday night.
Senior counselor Kellyanne Conway argued that the GOP’s special election victories and Trump’s reception in the heartland is evidence that the administration’s new approach to the media is working.
The hysterics inside the Washington cable news bubble haven’t penetrated outside the Beltway, Conway said Wednesday night on Fox News’s “Hannity.”
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White House crackdown on on-camera press briefings worries Trump allies: https://t.co/lvR56lebSU pic.twitter.com/vCdYoFyGUi
— The Hill (@thehill) June 23, 2017
They don’t want anything recorded on the record. So many times Trump has said one thing and Spicer another. This way they can deny what was said and if there is no recording of it it becomes “fake news”. This entire administration is a sideshow.
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