{"id":47934,"date":"2026-04-28T11:45:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=47934"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:45:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T18:45:34","slug":"will-the-white-house-press-be-even-more-submissive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/04\/28\/will-the-white-house-press-be-even-more-submissive\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the White House press be even more submissive?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the media seeks \u201cunity\u201d with politicians, we\u2019re all in trouble<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mark Jacob<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apr 27, 2026 (stopthepresses.news)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even when the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner goes smoothly, it\u2019s a huge embarrassment to journalists. And in the wake of Saturday\u2019s shooting that interrupted the event, the spectacle of journalists cozying up to politicians is likely to get even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll do it again within the next 30 days,\u201d<\/a> Donald Trump said, \u201cand we\u2019ll make it bigger and better and even nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notice that Trump said \u201cwe.\u201d He\u2019s not supposed to be in charge of the event \u2013 he was a guest of the press \u2013 but he will surely use security concerns to big-foot the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association (WHCA) and dictate the terms of his return appearance, unless someone has the sense to call the whole thing off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHCA President Weijia Jiang of CBS News has been deferential to Trump despite his ongoing campaign to feed the 1st Amendment into a wood-chipper. (See my newsletter from two weeks ago<\/a> with a sample of Trump\u2019s outrageous attacks on the press.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Jiang wrote in a first-person piece published yesterday,<\/a> she welcomed Trump\u2019s appearance this year because she hoped it would \u201crestore some normalcy between the Trump administration and the press. Maybe I was na\u00efve, but I wanted it to be a room we don\u2019t see enough of in Washington: a bipartisan one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jiang said Trump told her after the shooting, \u201cI saw a room that was just totally unified.\u201d She added: \u201cUnity isn\u2019t a word we hear much these days. But that\u2019s how I felt, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arrrrrrg. The press isn\u2019t supposed to seek unity with politicians. It\u2019s supposed to seek the truth. That\u2019s easier to accomplish \u2013 and to get the public to believe \u2013 when you\u2019re not clinking champagne glasses with the people you\u2019re reporting on. Jiang and other WHCA members may have good intentions, but if so, they\u2019re such myopic journalists that they don\u2019t understand the authoritarian threat we face. Or maybe they realize it, but refuse to pass up the opportunity to wear expensive clothes, eat tasty food, and boost their social standing \u2013 democracy be damned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, it appears that the co-stars of Washington\u2019s next buddy movie are Trump and Jiang. At his post-shooting news conference, the president had high praise for the WHCA chief, calling her \u201cmadam chairman,\u201d<\/a> and let her ask the first question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plans for a dinner do-over are unclear. Jiang wrote: \u201cTrump insists we are having the dinner again in 30 days. Let\u2019s see.\u201d Some Washington journalists think<\/a> it would be best not to attempt another dinner this year, but Trump tends to fixate on his stupidest ideas. If the dinner does happen, look for the WHCA and the White House to work in lockstep, billing it as a patriotic gesture \u2013 an act of \u201cunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will the event return to the Washington Hilton or will Trump push for another venue? He was quick to note that the Hilton was \u201cnot a particularly secure building\u201d<\/a> and argued that the shooting showed the need for his beloved ballroom, which he has tried to ram through<\/a>, despite a legal challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the arrangements for an \u201ceven nicer\u201d makeup dinner, there are more reasons to think Saturday\u2019s gunfire will work to Trump\u2019s advantage with the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gunman\u2019s anti-Trump political views<\/a> are already being used by the right to depict political terrorism as a left-wing problem, when it\u2019s actually more common on the right.<\/a> If journalists don\u2019t accept the right\u2019s spin, Trump will accuse them of covering up leftist violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, I fear the shooting will create a stronger emotional bond between Washington journalists and the people in power. It\u2019s human nature for people who go through a harrowing event together to become closer. Politicians and the press \u2013 two groups that have a naturally adversarial role in our society \u2013 shared a jarring experience in which they faced a common danger. I\u2019m not saying the shooting is likely to make Trump more empathetic \u2013 he\u2019s still Trump, after all \u2013 but it might lead to a less aggressive posture by the journalists of the WHCA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not as if White House reporters were tough on Trump before the shooting. They frequently treat his comments with wide-eyed gullibility, even though he\u2019s the most prominent public liar of our time. They regularly normalize and sanewash<\/a> his unhinged behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journalists have generally avoided pushback as Trump has called them \u201cPiggy,\u201d<\/a> \u201cugly,\u201d<\/a> \u201cnasty,\u201d<\/a> \u201cstupid,\u201d<\/a> \u201cslime,\u201d<\/a> \u201cscum,\u201d<\/a> \u201cvery unpatriotic,\u201d<\/a> \u201cobnoxious,\u201d<\/a> \u201cdisgusting,\u201d<\/a> \u201cdishonest,\u201d<\/a> \u201cdisgrace,\u201d<\/a> \u201closer,\u201d<\/a> \u201csleazebag,\u201d<\/a> \u201canimals,\u201d<\/a> \u201csome of the worst human beings you\u2019ll ever meet,\u201d<\/a> \u201cenemy of the people,\u201d<\/a> and his all-time favorite, \u201cfake news.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesley Stahl of CBS\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d once recalled a private conversation in which she asked Trump why he insulted the press.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know why I do it?\u201d he said. \u201cI do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If journalists accept that version of \u201cunity,\u201d we\u2019re doomed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Share<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

This week\u2019s media atrocity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has played a key role in helping Trump trash America\u2019s global standing, yet Politico cited his \u201csavvy handling of foreign conflicts\u201d<\/a> in a story last week as if it were an established fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the media seeks \u201cunity\u201d with politicians, we\u2019re all in trouble Mark Jacob Apr 27, 2026 (stopthepresses.news) Even when the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner goes smoothly, it\u2019s a huge embarrassment to journalists. And in the wake of Saturday\u2019s shooting that interrupted the event, the spectacle of journalists cozying up to… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47934"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47935,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47934\/revisions\/47935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}