As expected, the first official day of Joe Biden’s presidency has been chock full of excessive media drooling, and included Very Important fashion updates about Biden, Kamala Harris and their respective spouses, as well as much swooning and swaying over talk about how Biden will supposedly “heal and unify” the nation.
Sadly, when it was time for mainstream media reporters to get down to the serious business of actually asking the Biden administration the tough questions they’ve promised they will, what we saw was the exact opposite of the belligerent nastiness that was frequently on display from the “objective” White House press corps during their highly combative exchanges with Trump White House press secretaries like Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Sanders, and Sean Spicer.
Instead, these are some of the “hard-hitting” questions asked of Obama administration alum and Biden press secretary Jen Psaki at the first Biden White House press briefing:
At her first press briefing, WH Press Sec Jen Psaki takes a softball for her very first question from the AP: "Do you see yourself as promoting the interests of the President or are you there to provide us the unvarnished truth so we can share that with the American people?" pic.twitter.com/iIylZSijYe
— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) January 21, 2021
NBC's Peter Alexander laments to WH's Jen Psaki that "the battle for truth is a tough fight right now as is the battle against coronavirus" and how she (and President Biden) will "combat disinformation that, in many ways, led to that assault…on the Capitol."
What a suck-up. pic.twitter.com/to6Uj4kCs5
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 21, 2021
And then there was the important question about whether Biden would have the colors changed on Air Force One:
REPORTER: "Will [Biden] keep Donald Trump's Air Force One color scheme change?
PSAKI: "This is such a good question!" pic.twitter.com/PafHiBtRUs
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 21, 2021
After the press briefing, the New York Times also filed this hard-hitting recap:
Jen Psaki’s Debut: No Attacks, No Lectures, No Crowd Size Fixationhttps://t.co/B3M3OKSqCd
— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) January 21, 2021
Woke PBS NewsHour performance journalist Yamiche Alcindor was over the moon:
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says she plans to hold daily White House briefings Monday through Friday.
What a change.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) January 21, 2021
Meanwhile, in the real world, this is who we’re really dealing with:
Ahead of Jen Psaki's first briefing, NBC's Andrea Mitchell praised Psaki's work at the State Department in the Obama years claiming "a great reputation."
In reality, Psaki's shop manipulated official video to edit out a Fox News question catching them lying about the Iran deal. pic.twitter.com/XguZKpAIG9
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 21, 2021
So… @PressSec Jen Psaki lies right off the bat, claiming the “travel ban” was a “Muslim ban.” It was not. So much for @JoeBiden’s commitment to truth… just a few hours ago in his Inaugural.
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) January 21, 2021
“The Hill” media critic Joe Concha summed things up best with this .gif:
First question to new WH press secretary Jen Psaki from the AP: “When you are up there, do you see yourself in your primary as promoting the interests of the president or are you there to provide us the unvarnished truth so we can share that with the American people?" pic.twitter.com/AI767CdbF1
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) January 21, 2021
Four years of this, y’all. Four frickin’ years.
Related: Must-Read Thread Provides Timely Advice for the Media: ‘Stop. Editorializing. The. News.’
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