Key Points
- The Biden Administration is meeting with members of the media to ask for more favorable coverage.
- They don’t like some of the reporting happening on the economy and supply chain crisis.
- But the problem isn’t the media – it’s the man in the Oval Office.
President Biden’s job approval is underwater —Real Clear Politics has Joe at an average of 42.3 – a far cry from his day one 55.5. It’s likely due to his failings on COVID, the economy, the supply chain, inflation, Afghanistan, China, and Russia.
But instead of improving his administration and listening to average Americans (who sent a very clear message in the off-year elections), Biden and co. have asked the press to go easy on them. According to a New York Post report,“the White House has been secretly begging news organizations to give ‘favorable’ coverage to President Biden rather than focusing on his failings.”
“The administration is ‘not happy’ with the unflattering headlines and coverage of the supply-chain disaster and handling of the economy — and ‘has been working behind the scenes trying to reshape coverage in its favor,’” CNN confirms. White House officials “have been briefing major newsrooms over the past week.”
Briefing newsrooms? Sounds like Joe is setting up his own Xinhua News Agency.
Biden’s inability to use the presidential pulpit to garner goodwill from the press isn’t doing him any favors. In fact, his minimalist press approach is a major departure from his predecessors and has his allies concerned.
“After nine months in office, Mr. Biden has conducted roughly a dozen one-on-one interviews with major print and television news outlets. That compares with more than 50 for Mr. Trump, and more than 100 for Barack Obama, in the same period, according to West Wing record keepers,” the New York Times reports. Biden has yet to do interviews with The Associated Press, The New York Times, Reuters, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal or USA Today.
But the problem isn’t the press. The problem is Biden’s string of bad decisions and his inability to sell his agenda.
“What I believe in is sell, sell, sell,” veteran strategist James Carville said in an interview. “What they’re missing is salesmanship. Everybody wants to be a policy maven, and no one wants to go door to door and sell pots and pans.”
…and so, Americans remain skeptical of ‘Build Back’ and Biden, his numbers tank, and the news is unfavorable.
Joe’s problems with the press have also been greatly exaggerated. The Washington Post published a column late last week claiming Biden gets it worse from the media than Trump did. This is, of course, ridiculous and the “findings” were quickly debunked by FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, The Daily Wire, Fox News, and others.
If you want your image to change, Joe, don’t beg the press. Start with the man in the mirror.
