My Reply: First They Came for The AP ...
Boycott Trump? Your ideas for reversing his nefarious ban on The Associated Press.
Welcome to the third edition of My Reply, where I curate your questions and publish my replies.
Some of these exchanges come from an email I sent you Friday soliciting questions and insights. Others are pulled from the comments section of Convulsions columns. Still others come from my old journalism network at X.
The questions are overwhelmingly about The Associated Press, the 179-year-old global news organization where I made my bones as a White House and political reporter, a columnist, and the Washington bureau chief. This week, President Trump banned The AP from White House events and Air Force One, because the non-profit news cooperative refused to impose his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico on the rest of the world.
In this column on Wednesday, I called it a petty and vindictive move that might violate the free-press clause of the First Amendment and arguably runs counter to Trump’s interests. When the White House escalated, I posted on X a call to boycott the daily White House briefing.
#BoycottTheBriefing: No self-respecting journalist should attend a White House briefing while the White House bans the @AP for not accepting state-mandated language.
Some of you said a boycott would be an overreaction, a strategic mistake. Some called for stronger action. As of this writing, several media outlets had denounced The AP ban, but were bringing nothing more to the fight than words.
I posted again on X.
What news outlet steps forward first to support free speech and free press?
1. News is rarely made in WH briefings.
2. An intern can monitor briefings online.
3. Tough questions are better posed to senior officials and the POTUS, not a flak.
4. First they came for The AP …
There were questions. Many questions.
What are you smoking, Ron?
Media writer Paul Farhi called a boycott “unlikely and likely unworkable. Main reason: MSM reporters go where the news is, or at least where it might be, even if they don’t like the circumstances. Not covering a potential story is self defeating.”
REPLY: I have some polite pushback.
News is rarely made in the briefings.
The briefings are broadcast live; can be covered online.
Perhaps the best way to grab the attention of an attention-seeking White House is to not show up for their staged-managed, overtly political spin sessions.
Won’t a boycott deny reporters information they need?
Paul pushed back politely on my pushback, asking “is there a value in being there, asking questions, gathering info that you can’t see on TV?”
REPLY: As somebody assigned to sit in the front row of the briefing room for a decade-plus, I will tell you there is little to no value in being there. Not to pose questions. Not to pose for TV cameras. The worst place to cover the White House is from inside that gilded cage.
Then why, when I was AP’s bureau chief in Washington, did I assign an AP reporter to sit in the briefings? Honestly, for one reason: to show respect for the institution of the presidency. That’s it. I filled the seat. We covered any tiny bits of news remotely, off the live feed.
My best reporters were not in the briefing room. They were texting and calling sources. They were walking the halls of Congress. They were knocking on doors at federal agencies.
What I’m about to say is true today and was true during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations: For the best reporters — ones interested in something more than transcription journalism and preening for cameras — the White House briefing is a waste of time.
A boycott might send a message to the only people who benefit from the daily briefing: The president and his staff.
Boycott more than the briefing!
said in a Substack Note that the rest of the White House press corps “could collectively decide not to attend briefings, pressers, or pools until their AP colleagues are reinstated with access, but that would take a modicum of courage and integrity, wouldn’t it?”
REPLY: Yes, it would.
What if the president gets mad at us?
One of my oldest friends in Washington, a veteran of the White House press corps and somebody whose opinion I deeply value, privately messaged me to say, “I’m really concerned that everybody’s talking about boycotting as a group the next time something happens. I’ve said I think that’s a horrible idea.” My friend is afraid the White House will take advantage of a boycott to permanently ban from the West Wing all but MAGA-friendly news outlets.
REPLY: That is a risk. But doing nothing is riskier. First they come for The AP, and your organization doesn’t speak out. Then they come for you.
Hell, as soon as Trump decides he wants to limit the West Wing to MAGA journalists, he can make that happen — with or without a boycott. I’m not saying a boycott will work, but I am saying we’ve got to respond in an authentically strong way so that he’s forced to back off.
Harshly worded press releases are weak tea.
Stop access journalism
Subscriber said reporters put too much emphasis on access. “A resourceful reporter can always find another way to report a story. And the creativity that requires may cause some very interesting, unintended results.”
REPLY: Amen! You sound like every editor I had at the AP, and the editor I tried to be.
Rename the Gulf again
Subscriber ended one long thread on a light note: “Let’s just cut to the chase. AP should style it as the “Gulf of Trump” and see how he reacts.”
REPLY: Why not the “Gulf of Mears” — in honor of AP’s legendary political writer, the late-Walter Mears? (Joking …)
What is this crap?
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I literally can’t do this without you.
The government lies. Listening and spreading their lies is just that. Nothing more and nothing less. The AP is maintaining journalistic integrity. More power to the AP.
Your compass heading is consistently straight and true.
"Having spent hours in the White House briefing room under Presidents Clinton and Bush, I can tell you that was the worst use of my time," you told James Warren in April 2017 for Poynter. "Reporters should report: Develop sources, file FOIAs, massage data and, above all, interview people outside Washington. Lots of them. All the time."
That echoes a "send the interns" item in your "Farewell Guide to Political Journalism" seven months earlier at The Atlantic.