I came away appalled and dismayed after watching the March 4 White House press conference. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has no authority to attack news media organizations for making the president, in her view, “look bad.” Quite the contrary, it’s the press secretary’s job to make the president look as good as possible, a job she’s apparently failing, given the president’s latest approval ratings.
The job of news outlets, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution, is to gather as much information as possible and report it as comprehensively as possible. What they choose for headlines is their decision. The deaths of Americans in our current armed conflict could be considered front-page news in the same way it was when American soldiers died during the withdrawal from Afghanistan or during the war in Iraq.
Neither is it the press secretary’s job to claim media outlets have poor ratings due to the news they wish to feature. If CNN’s ratings are as poor as Leavitt suggested, it would seem she wouldn’t be so defensive about what the organization chooses to feature in its news coverage.
The White House press secretary should go back to answering questions from the press as fully and completely as possible and leave it to readers and viewers to determine what should be prioritized by news organizations.
Mark Harvey
Duluth
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