National Review
A group of 68 journalists sent a letter to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday demanding that the Biden administration reopen large White House events to all journalists and questioning President Biden’s commitment to defending the First Amendment.
Washington Examiner
Biden is not required to answer reporter questions, according to political analyst Dan Schnur, a Republican-turned-independent now at the University of California. But he urged the White House to remember the news media is a proxy for voters.
“Biden hasn’t completely shut out the press, but he has been less available to them than any president in recent memory,” Schnur added. “The White House has the prerogative of deciding on the format, but the president should be much more available to questions from journalists than has been the case until now.”
Biden has a complicated relationship with the press. Some critics contend the White House does not grant reporters enough access to the president and that aides are “handling” him. Others believe his tendency to make verbal mistakes is problematic.
Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-press-access-backlash
Columbia Journalism Review
Biden’s recent record with the press is far from perfect. Last year, after his late-ish entry into the Democratic primary, he largely skirted the national media—an apparent bid to limit his potential to commit “gaffes” (long a staple of Biden coverage) and leave intact voters’ memories of Cool Uncle Joe, Obama’s vice president—though he did give interviews to local news stations. As Biden’s campaign flailed in Iowa and New Hampshire, he opened up more, but once he’d locked up the nomination, the pandemic hit, and he mostly stayed in his basement—a perfectly understandable public-health precaution that nonetheless didn’t come with generous workarounds for press access; at one point, Biden went three months without holding a news conference, virtual or otherwise.
Source: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/joe_biden_communications_team_press_secretary.php
MediaPost
Handing the Trump administration a defeat, a federal appellate court has upheld an order requiring the White House press secretary to restore journalist Brian Karem’s press credentials.
In an opinion issued Friday, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said Karem lacked fair notice that his press pass would be suspended due to allegedly “unprofessional” conduct.
The decision stemmed from Trump’s July 2019 “social media summit,” which involved convening right-wing activists to discuss alleged bias by tech companies.
The New York Times
A loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/us/politics/trump-allies-news-media.html