There have been rows of empty seats in recent coronavirus briefings by President Donald Trump.
Reporters increasingly don't believe the briefings have enough news value to merit breaking social-distancing measures to attend, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
TV networks have also cut away from the briefings, or chosen not to broadcast them altogether, as the president continues to use the sessions to spread misinformation and troll the press.
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Reporters are skipping President Donald Trump's daily coronavirus news briefings, and TV networks are increasingly choosing not to broadcast them live, because they believe they don't have enough news value to risk breaking social-distancing rules.
In recent days there have been scores of empty seats in the White House press-briefing room, where Trump has delivered updates on the US battle against the novel coronavirus alongside public-health officials.
But instead of delivering key information and sober assessments of the situation to the American public, Trump has frequently resorted to tactics more familiar from his raucous campaign rallies: boasting of his accomplishments, floating misinformation, attacking the press, and taunting Democrats — with Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York a favored target.
According to The Washington Post, reporters are now "keeping their distance because they are concerned about the health risks at a time when many consider the president's evening news conferences to have become increasingly less newsworthy."
Trump with Vice President Mike Pence and the infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci at the March 20 coronavirus press briefing. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
After two White House correspondents were recently suspected of having the virus, top media outlets including The Post, The New York Times, and CNBC stopped sending veteran correspondents to cover the briefings, The Post reported.
"Nowadays, it seems they make little news," The Times' executive editor, Dean Baquet, told The Post. "We, of course, reserve the right to show them live [via web streaming] if we believe they will actually make news. But that hasn't happened in quite some time."
'The information no longer appeared to be valuable to the important ongoing discussion around public health'
Cable networks have also skipped Trump's briefings. For more than a week, networks including CNN and MSNBC have been cutting away from Trump's briefings — or not showing them at all.
In response to criticism from the White House last week for not showing the president's briefing in full, MSNBC told The Hill in a statement that it wasn't broadcasting the full briefing "because the information no longer appeared to be valuable to the important ongoing discussion around public health."
During his press briefings, Trump has fielded questions and directed attacks at reporters from TV networks, including PBS' Yamiche Alcindor, whose probing questions frequently provoked the president's ire.
—Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) March 30, 2020
Trump abruptly changed his tone on the coronavirus this week.
On Sunday, he announced that US lockdown measures would be extended until April 30, and on Tuesday he unveiled new projections suggesting up to 240,000 Americans could die from COVID-19 even with strict measures to fight it.
But he has also continued to use briefings in recent days to attack reporters, solicit praise, and spread claims about unproven cures.
TheodoreFMRoosevelt on April 1st, 2020 at 18:00 UTC »
There's nothing you can do that hurts Trump more than ignoring him. Criticize him (or as he sees, it, slandering him, for he has one divine attribute, he is a jealous God) and he just goes into attack mode, he just strikes right back. Oh, he doesn't like being criticized but he does like attacking people. In fact I think very few other things make him really happy.
But ignore him... that cuts deep. That's a knife right to his soul. Then he feels powerless, and the more he flails, as long as you keep ignoring him, the more powerless he feels, and he just can't understand why it's not working.
Of course, it's a dangerous game to play. He is the President, and he's more than willing to do something so stupid that you have to pay attention to him again.
rlanthony on April 1st, 2020 at 17:15 UTC »
I had a thought last night. Knowing Trump is a narcissist, how do you think he'd react if every question at the COVID briefings were directed to the experts. Imagine, not a single person asking Trump what he thought.
fattymcassface on April 1st, 2020 at 14:40 UTC »
Looks like he was just doing us all a solid by not holding any for the first 3 years.