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Media critic calls out Biden for taking questions from 'pre-approved list of reporters'
By Joshua Nelson
Published January 26, 2021
Fourh Watch newsletter editor Steve Krakauer criticized the Biden White House for choosing reporters off a pre-approved list at a press conference Monday, similar to how the Biden team handled press avails during the campaign.
"What you are going to get is no one asking tough questions," Krakauer told "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday.
Krakauer explained the Biden campaign has a system used for the campaign, transition, and administration in which the team only calls on certain reporters based on a pre-approved list.
"If you ask a tough question you might be taken off the list. Then what can you do you will have no question for your media organization," he said.
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President Biden held his first formal White House press conference on Monday, but most of the questions asked were from reporters that were pre-selected by his team.
Following his remarks about his "Made in America" manufacturing initiative, a member of Biden's staff was heard calling on specific reporters to ask their questions to the president, something that was similarly done during the 2020 presidential election and the transition period. The pre-selected reporters came from The Associated Press, The Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters, and Bloomberg News.
Biden did, however, offer an impromptu question to Fox News' Peter Doocy, who he teased for "always ask[ing] him tough questions and always has an edge to them," but added he "like[s] him anyway."
Journalists took to Twitter to point out the mostly pre-selected presser.
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"So I guess I need to continue the practice of telling you all what I would've asked here," Roll Call correspondent Niel Lesniewski reacted."
"A White House handler is calling on reporters by name and by outlet one-by-one to ask Biden a question, unlike Trump who called on reporters as the [spirit] moved him," Real Clear News reporter Philip Wegmann pointed out how Biden's predecessor engaged with the press.
"This continues to be profoundly odd and a painfully obvious attempt to protect him from those suspected of having the audacity to ask a challenging question," The Hill columnist and Fox News contributor Joe Concha said.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/media-critic-biden-taking-questions-pre-selected-reporters