Sounds a lot like the government telling the press what to report, no?
Hot on the heels of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement that GOP-led House committees should move forward with an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, the Biden White House drops a letter to major media organizations with direct orders.
“Ramp up scrutiny” of the impeachment inquiry.
“Through our investigations, we have found that President Biden did lie to the American people about his own knowledge of his family’s foreign business dealings,” the speaker charged, claiming that “these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.”
Instead of being transparent, the White House opted to engage in some sort of strange press proxy war with the GOP.
White House spox Ian Sams said the inquiry has no supporting evidence, which “should set off alarm bells for news organizations.”
“No evidence?” Phone calls, emails, bank accounts, testimonies —still, “no evidence.”
“It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” Sams said in the letter.
“This is not OK,” journalist Matthew Keys tweeted. “The White House should not be encouraging, influencing or interfering in the editorial strategies of America’s newsrooms, including CNN and the New York Times.”
He continued, “Now, any time the media DOES try to hold Republican lawmakers to account, those lawmakers can simply counter by questioning whether it’s actual journalism or something encouraged by the Biden administration.”
Sams sent the letter to executives at CNN, the New York Times, Fox News, the Associated Press and CBS News, a White House source told CNN.
“The problem is they’re trying to influence coverage,” Keys concluded. “The government should never do that. It is inappropriate.”
Sams has moved forward with the letter, anyway.
“Covering impeachment as a process story — Republicans say X, but the White House says Y — is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable,” Sams writes.
“And in the modern media environment, where everyday liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to FOX, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people’s feeds and obscure the truth.”
You’re in no place to be lecturing people on obscuring the truth, Mr. Sams.
