Team Biden takes media to task for what it's 'getting wrong', calls for increased scrutiny of Trump

President Biden's campaign officials reportedly invoked a "coverage spreadsheet" during meetings with major newspapers as part of a wider pattern of pressuring the media to cover the campaign more to their liking.

Biden campaign officials trotted out a "coverage spreadsheet" during recent meetings with The New York Times and The Washington Post and pointed out issues they had with the leading papers' coverage as part of wider efforts to correct "what they're getting wrong," Semafor reported.

The meeting with The New York Times did not go well, according to Semafor, but others were reported to have been "productive." It is common for campaigns from both parties to meet with members of the press for off-the-record conversations to influence coverage or at least provide more context.

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on democracy, while honoring the legacy of late US Senator John McCain, at the Tempe Center for the Arts in Tempe, Arizona, on September 28, 2023.  (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

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Biden campaign officials specifically took issue with media coverage of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, according to Semafor, and feel the coverage was "too focused" on his legal problems. This comes after several complaints by the campaign, the White House and the president himself about the coverage of his administration.

The campaign called out The New York Times in November in a campaign email and argued that the outlet needed to be more critical of Trump. 

"For the political press corp – especially our friends at the Gray Lady – it’s time to meet the moment and responsibly inform the electorate of what their lives might look like if the leading GOP candidate for president is allowed back in the WH," the email read, according to a post on social media. 

The campaign singled out a report published in November by the outlet headlined, "Why Trump Seems Less Vulnerable on Abortion Than Other Republicans." 

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023, in Reno, Nev.  (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

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The campaign took issue with the outlet's assertion that Trump was being vague about his abortion stance to appeal to general election voters.

"He appears to be attending to general election voters by employing vagueness and trying to occupy a middle ground of sorts, perhaps allowing voters to see what they want to see. And traditionally in presidential elections, a relatively small share of people will vote based on any one social issue, even if that issue is abortion," the NYT reported.

Ian Sams, a Special Assistant to the President and spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s office, also wrote a letter to media outlets after House Republicans opened an impeachment inquiry into Biden.

The White House urged media outlets to "ramp up [their] scrutiny" of House Republicans for opening the inquiry. 

President Joe Biden during a news conference with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine's president, not pictured, in the Indian Treaty Room on the White House complex, in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Biden has blamed his low approval ratings on press coverage. 

Upon leaving the White House before spending his Christmas at Camp David, Biden was asked by a reporter about his "outlook" on the economy going into 2024. 

"All good. Take a look," Biden responded. "Start reporting it the right way."

During an interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle in May 2023, Biden also complained of negative press coverage.

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"All they've heard is negative news for three years. Everything is negative," Biden said. "I'm not being critical of the press, but you turn on the television — the only way you're gonna get a hit is if there's something negative, you know. You don't — anyway, that's number one."

Team Biden's complaints come as President Biden has gone since October without doing a serious one-on-one journalistic interview; his wife Jill Biden is scheduled to be interviewed at a friendly MSNBC event at the White House this week.

Left-leaning journalists have also claimed that the media hasn't been covering the economy correctly. Former CNN host John Harwood, who sat down with Biden for ProPublica last year and is a vehement defender of the administration on social media, wrote in November that journalists need to be better.

"Journalists need to better convey two realities: the US economy is doing well, not poorly," and "Biden at 80 is handling the job effectively right now," he wrote on X in early November. 

Harwood similarly deemed the coverage of the economy "astonishingly obtuse."

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan dedicated a segment to the economy in July 2023, and said, "the numbers don't lie." 

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"So maybe these days it's not the economy, stupid, maybe it's the polarization, stupid, maybe it's the media, stupid," he said. "They're lying, to you." 

The Biden campaign didn't respond to a request for comment.

Fox News' Jeffrey Clark, Brian Flood, and Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.