Keller @ Large: Why Bother With The White House Press Briefing?
BOSTON (CBS) -- Perhaps you heard about how a White House reporter lashed out at deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders yesterday after she delivered one of the now-familiar Trump-era diatribes accusing the press of making up news stories.
He called her inflammatory, and noted that at least the legitimate press does corrections when they foul up, something we rarely if ever see from the White House. She waved him off and moved on.
In the grand scheme of things, it didn't mean much.
But it left me wondering why reporters are even bothering to show up anymore in the White House press room.
For many years now, White House press conferences have been a joke, a content-free exercise in mostly-lackluster sparring between spokespeople bent on saying absolutely nothing and reporters dutifully panning for non-existent news gold.
Nowadays, they seem especially useless.
Huckabee and Sean Spicer don't even know what the president is thinking about things most of the time, and thus have zero to offer.
Instead, I urge the White House press corps to get out of the building, meet with sources, do research, maybe talk to some regular folks at a local mall.
If they really want to chat with the flacks, they can make an appointment, and the exchange needn't be televised.
They will learn more about what's really going on, politically and policy-wise, in one day of doing that than they will in a month of playing verbal Gin Rummy with presidential puppets.
And I can assure you, no one will miss it.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
