WaPo reporter hits White House for lack of media briefings: Press room is ‘abandoned’

A Washington Post reporter criticized the lack of media briefings from the White House by comparing the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room to a Blockbuster video store that is “dusty, cobwebbed and abandoned.” 

The White House has “a very nice room for press briefings located just a few steps from the driveway,” wrote Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi in a story published on Sunday about White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders using the White House driveway to address reporters instead of a more formal setting.

“But these days, the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room is like a Blockbuster video store: dusty, cobwebbed and abandoned,” he wrote. 

{mosads} The perspective comes more than two weeks after CNN reporter Maegan Vazquez took a photo of the briefing room podium to show it gathering dust.

“The White House hasn’t held press briefing in so long that the lectern in the briefing room is quite literally gathering dust,” Vazquez tweeted on May 17. 

The White House hasn’t held press briefing in so long that the lectern in the briefing room is quite literally gathering dust.
Here’s a picture: pic.twitter.com/4rGiTXZTO4

— Maegan Vazquez (@maeganvaz) May 15, 2019

Sanders’s last press briefing occurred on March 11, where she was asked about the lack of press briefings.

The White House responded to a request for comment from The Hill by referring to previous remarks on the subject made by Sanders at that briefing.

“I know the president is the most accessible president in modern history,” Sanders said at the time. “He takes questions from you guys nearly every single day.”

Trump has often spoken to reporters in what’s referred to as “gaggles” outside the White House in recent months.

The president argued in January that the reason press briefings are so few and far between is because “certain members of the press” are rude.

“The reason Sarah Sanders does not go to the ‘podium’ much anymore is that the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the press,” Trump wrote to his nearly 60 million followers. “I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway! Most will never cover us fairly & hence, the term, Fake News!” 

The reason Sarah Sanders does not go to the “podium” much anymore is that the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the press. I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway! Most will never cover us fairly & hence, the term, Fake News!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2019

 Updated at 2 p.m.