Fox News Flash top entertainment headlines for February 3
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Comedian Joy Behar defended Wednesday a new report that the White House was screening reporters’ questions in advance, asserting that press conferences are not supposed to be filled with "gotcha questions" aimed at Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
While co-hosting "The View", Behar claimed that Biden’s administration is more truthful than the previous one.
"This idea that she can come up with spin, I think the reporters are quite aware of when someone is spinning and when they’re not, and that they would call her out on that, and this administration is very well prepared to say the truth, whereas the last one would just lie and spin and whatever," said Behar.
Co-host Meghan McCain rebutted with a different opinion, saying that asking for questions in advance is "highly unkosher" and "unorthodox" for any White House.
"Maybe we are all living in different worlds," McCain said, "but, I have worked on campaigns, I’ve been around many politicians, I’ve helped politicians, I’ve never once been in a situation where I said ‘hey, you as a journalist can you give me this question for the principal in advance,’ that’s not how it works."
McCain also acknowledged that most journalists have a "liberal bias" and that if Psaki and the current administration believe that they can lead by a different standard of rules because Donald Trump is out of office, then "it's going to end very badly."
An esteemed ethics guru said Tuesday that the report that the Biden White House communications team has attempted to screen briefing questions for press secretary Jen Psaki could "crush" trust in the media if there is a perception the press is in cahoots with the Biden administration.
University of North Carolina associate professor Lois Boynton teaches journalism ethics and specializes in analyzing decisions made by public relations practitioners and journalists. She said it’s not unprecedented for government public affairs officers or company public relations practitioners to ask for questions upfront, but that doesn’t mean the reporter must oblige.
"It’s also not unprecedented for the reporters to say ‘no,’" Boynton told Fox News.
President Biden’s communications team chalked the Daily Beast report up to manufacturing drama out of efforts to make daily briefings more thorough.
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"Our goal is to make the daily briefing as useful and informative as possible for both reporters and the public. Part of meeting that objective means regularly engaging with the reporters who will be in the briefing room to understand how the White House can be most helpful in getting them the information they need. That two-way conversation is an important part of keeping the American people updated about how government is serving them," a White House spokesperson told Fox News.
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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