Biden needs to ‘practice what he preaches’ and rise to the moment after lecturing press, critics say
The mainstream media certainly couldn't be described as pro-Trump, but that hasn't stopped President Biden from taking considerable shots at the Fourth Estate for doing an insufficient job of establishing the stakes of the 2024 election.
At last month's White House Correspondents' Dinner, Biden admonished the media, telling them to "rise up to the seriousness of the moment" because the "stakes couldn’t be higher."
But it may be falling on deaf ears.
"Those admonishments don't hit as hard when they're coming from the least accessible president in modern history," one White House reporter told Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, Biden's call for the media to "rise up to the seriousness of the moment" came just one day after his not-so-serious interview with liberal radio talk show host Howard Stern. Stern, the shock jock who once captured the nation as an anti-establishment media personality, spent much of his interview with Biden singing his praises, even listing off Biden's accomplishments.
Fox News contributor Joe Concha, a longtime media reporter, feels Biden's White House Correspondents' Dinner comments were absurd.
"Biden is the only president not to sit down with the editorial boards of the New York Times, Washington Post, or Wall Street Journal in his first term. He's held just three press conferences in the past 16 months. For context, Donald Trump held 35 solo press conferences during his final year in office," Concha told Fox News Digital.
"I'm willing to bet right now that Joe Biden will continue to do interviews with the Howard Sterns and Jason Batemans of the world, but won't go near any interview with anyone resembling a serious journalist, asking serious questions and follow-up questions before Election Day," Concha continued. "Mark it down."
OutKick’s Bobby Burack echoed that notion.
"The Biden team will not allow their notoriously feeble boss to sit down with any interviewer who could dare to ask even moderately tough questions," Burack wrote.
Team Biden turned down an interview with CBS host Norah O'Donnell during the Super Bowl pre-game show last February," Burack continued. "Joe Biden doesn't seek ‘serious journalism.’ He seeks useful idiots of the Democrat Party – like Howard Stern."
Politico's media writer Jack Shafer published a withering piece about Biden's criticisms last week, saying Biden had presented a "false choice," that either the media could cover the campaign properly by pointing out the dangers of Trump or engage in frivolous, "horse race" coverage, as the president put it.
In the piece headlined, "Time to tune out Biden's media criticism," Shafer noted numerous mainstream and liberal outlets that have published extensive coverage sounding the alarm about a second Trump term, including The Atlantic, Politico and the New York Times.
"There’s been no shortage of stakes reporting, something the president would know if he talked to more reporters, rather than deploying only the usual surplus of press bashing," he wrote. "The president has no case."
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck feels Biden "should absolutely practice what he preaches" by rising up to meet the "seriousness of the moment" and being more accountable to the press.
"If democracy is on the line like Biden claims, then he should be facing the cameras, talking about the issues, and having his policies tested. Fortunately for Biden, he and his handlers are aware of the fact that the press will abide by their demands to become even more aggressively anti-Trump, but will raise only the occasional, muted gripe about the lack of press access," Houck told Fox News Digital.
Houck said that if this were a Republican administration, the press would be "livid at the notion of being lectured to by the White House" and "kvetch to the ends of the earth about not having the chance to ask questions of the president."
"Press access serves as a great measuring stick for media double standards. The press know a lack of face-time is wrong, but only when one party is in power will they make a concerted, public campaign to raise the public's ire," Houck said.
The White House vehemently disagreed that the president is not accessible.
"Joe Biden speaks with the White House press corps more frequently than almost every other modern president, and has given a wide range of interviews – including with ‘60 Minutes,’ ‘Fareed Zakaria GPS,’ and the New Yorker -- at an increasingly fast pace," spokesperson Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital.
NEW YORK TIMES BLASTS BIDEN FOR 'AVOIDING QUESTIONS' FROM JOURNALISTS IN BLISTERING STATEMENT
While many legacy news outlets have given Biden a pass, The New York Times recently called Biden out for his unprecedented lack of media.
"For anyone who understands the role of the free press in a democracy, it should be troubling that President Biden has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term," a recent Times statement said. "The president occupies the most important office in our nation, and the press plays a vital role in providing insights into his thinking and worldview, allowing the public to assess his record and hold him to account."
"Mr. Biden has granted far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews with independent journalists than virtually all of his predecessors. It is true that The Times has sought an on-the-record interview with Mr. Biden, as it has done with all presidents going back more than a century. If the president chooses not to sit down with The Times because he dislikes our independent coverage, that is his right, and we will continue to cover him fully and fairly either way," it added.
HAS HOWARD STERN LOST HIS FAST BALL LIKE BIDEN?
There has been a recent uptick of Biden interviews granted with local news outlets on the campaign trail that don't often generate major headlines. As far as high-profile interviews on a national platform, he has become quite selective. Some of Biden's other recent interviewers include "Late Night" host Seth Meyers, his friendly biographer Evan Osnos in The New Yorker, liberal MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart (earning a rare second sit-down with the president), Univision's Enrique Acevedo, and Hollywood allies and "SmartLess" hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, who sat down with Biden and former Presidents Clinton and Obama for a joint podcast recording ahead of Biden's star-studded campaign fundraiser.
Perhaps the last adversarial interviews Biden faced were with PBS NewsHour's Judy Woodruff and ABC's David Muir, who both grilled him about his classified documents scandal back in February 2023.
Days after Biden's speech, Time released an extensive interview with Trump where he discussed his ambitious plans for a potential second term, addressing illegal immigration, abortion, the deep state, political violence and more.
Fox News Digital's Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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