While the economic news hasn’t been great the last year, the White House is looking to change that. Apparently, administration officials have been secretly meeting behind the scenes with various news outlets to “better shape” the coverage Joe Biden and his cohorts are receiving.

Sounds kind of unethical, doesn’t it? And as expected, CNN is trying to spin this as some great, normal occurrence. The meetings have been “productive” according to Brian Stelter.

Hey yo, this ACTUAL state run media. pic.twitter.com/jkkrqidPO0

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 7, 2021

If this is all copacetic, why do this “behind the scenes” instead of just holding open briefings so the public can be privy to these discussions? We know the answer to that: It’s not all copacetic. This is reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s emails exposing that her campaign worked directly with journalists to feed them stories. That’s clearly, in my view, what’s happening here with the Biden White House, and it is highly unethical.

Laughably, Brian Stelter wrote a low-selling book in which he ranted and raved about how the Donald Trump administration was working with Fox News to shape coverage (and that appeared limited to the opinion shows like Hannity). But while Stelter found that way out of line, “newsrooms” getting private briefings from the Biden administration to change bad news coverage is just fine with him. Heck, not only is it fine with him, but it’s also preferable and productive. These people wouldn’t have standards at all if they didn’t have double standards.

Unfortunately for the current president, he’s managed to hit the rare trifecta of this being unethical, insulting, and ineffective. While the media hold power to shape coverage, and the White House is apparently being allowed to shape it for them, in the end, you can’t lie to people about their economic situation. No amount of massaging bad jobs numbers or pretending that inflation doesn’t exist will change what people see on their grocery bill or gas receipt.

Further, I wouldn’t expect many Americans to buy the lazy, context-less argument that things are “better” today than last year. Sure, things are technically better, but that’s expected given much of the country was…forcibly locked down last year. A blind dog could have led the economy to where it is now.

What Americans want to see is real progress, not a big-spending government malaise that devalues their savings and kneecaps their retirement accounts. They are not impressed by mediocre jobs numbers when the economy should be absolutely booming right now. They don’t care that they have “more money in their pocket” if that money has less buying power overall.

Actually, that latter assertion is a perfect example of playing with numbers given that the rise in wages is mostly on the bottom end to fill open positions. Few people are actually getting raises at their current jobs so they don’t actually “have more money in their pockets.” Again, you can’t lie to people about what’s staring them in the face no matter how many “smart” arguments you make.

So while the White House and the mainstream media are rushing to change the narrative, it can’t be changed by a simple shift in coverage. Biden’s latest approval numbers attest to that. That they’d even try to gaslight like this only makes them appear more weak and pathetic. How about just producing real results that speak for themselves?