Biden’s False Choice for the Media
"The press can cover the stakes — and the horserace."
"President Joe Biden donned his press critic cap at last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner to lecture the reporters and editors who cover him on how to cover the 2024 presidential campaign."
"It was a discordant note. Was there anybody in the audience who hasn’t been taking Trump seriously? Which mainstream publication represented in the crowd has failed to smother Trump’s resurrection and authoritarian bluster with seriousness? (No, Fox News doesn’t count.)
As described by the president, either you’re covering the campaign seriously — meaning reporting out how dangerous Trump is — or you’re covering it frivolously by publishing and analyzing poll data, or revealing the Biden administration’s mistakes, or publishing stories that embarrass the administration. What rankles is the way he presented this false choice as an either-or proposition."
"For a politician to ask the press to downplay the horserace when politicians rank among the most dedicated clients of pollsters oozes hypocrisy. To disdain gotcha moments when every campaign deploys them against opponents is more of the same. As for distractions and sideshows, every political campaign known to mankind — including Biden’s — exploits distractions and sideshows to its advantage."
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/01/bidens-false-choice-for-the-media-00155434
