Earlier this month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt held an exclusive Q&A session in whicj MAGA influencers could “gush” about the joy of Uber drivers that “finally speak English” thanks to mass deportations under President Donald Trump.
But Intelligencer writer Ross Barkan argues propagandists dressed up as reporters are not watchdogs. And he further opined that an administration that has become a "playground for MAGA influencers" makes a mockery of an independent free press to make a “naked end run around accountability journalism."
But Barkan says Trump did not break down the door to this behavior.
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“The influencer era in the White House took off under [Former President Joe] Biden,” says Barkan. “… Last year, the Biden White House hosted a group of more than 100 influencers, from chefs and makeup artists to fitness gurus and medical students. Biden himself stopped by to tell the assemblage in the Indian Treaty Room in the White House complex that ‘the fact is, you are the future.’” He then sat for a “mostly pointless” interview with an influencer “who asks drivers of nice cars what they do for a living.”
The Biden administration even allegedly mulled the idea of dedicating a White House briefing room to influencers. And at the Democratic National Convention last summer, organizers handed our fewer seats and workspaces handed to traditional reporters.
“Instead [organizers] allowed left-leaning digital influencers 'to run roughshod over the convention, lobbing softball questions at Democrats still delirious over the nomination of Kamala Harris.'”
Barkan suggested that both Democrats and Republicans alike prefer “to dodge well-informed journalists asking challenging questions,” and many influencers will “uncritically reproduce whatever message the politician disseminates” to preserve their status “in the inner sanctum.”
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“It’s not as if the Biden administration was eager to invite the many young TikTokers who were despairing over the war in Gaza and blaming Biden for not reigning in the Israeli government,” Barkan writes.
But journalists should recognize “the limits of access” that influencers enjoy, he adds.
“If Leavitt has made the White House briefing into a farce — and the Biden administration laid the groundwork for where we are now — it’s important to remember most news isn’t going to be made with questions aimed at an administration mouthpiece,” he writes, adding that many things Leavitt and administration officials say are liable to change “given … the president’s own erratic behavior.”
“The best reporting happens beyond the briefing room, and there’s no reason important reporting needs to happen with spin from the White House,” Barkan said. “The strongest investigative reporters know this already. Even in an influencer’s world, they’re still desperately needed.”
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Read the full Intellegencer report here.