Politico is out with a piece about White House Reporters these days….
Boring is the word…..
Joe Biden follows the nation’s first Black/Mixed race President….
Then?
He follows a circrus act , media hound, serial liar President , who tried to steal an election in broad daylight thru violence no less….
Then?
We elected a guy who thinks like a legislator, does NOT sound impressive, and work’s overtime to NOT sound and act like a STRONG President…
Yup….
He’s Boring….
He has no stagecraft or power projection….
And his poll numbers confirm that….
The guy is almost invisible actually…
He was elected to be the anti-Trump….
Confrontation is to be avoided at ALL costs….
That may have been good for the campaign to get his job…
But it’s hurting him in keeping the job….
And caused collateral harm to his parties people trying to hold on to their jobs….
Washington reporters have long considered the role of White House correspondent to be the crown jewel of American political journalism. It has launched high-profile television careers, scored countless reporters book deals and been bestowed on media veterans for years of ink-drenched work.
But during the age of Biden, a perch inside the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room has become something altogether different.
It’s become a bore.
Some of those covering the most powerful office on the planet say that the storylines, while important, and substantive, can lack flair or be hard to get viewer attention. There is industry-wide acknowledgment that viewership is down. Television outlets have been quick to turn their attention to other stories and bolster other units. There is a sense that the main saga of American politics is taking place outside the confines of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and that the journalists covering it — Donald Trump and the future of democracy — may reap the career rewards….
…
Gone are the Tweets that sent newsrooms scrambling. So long to the five alarm Friday news dumps that had editors frantically rearranging weekend plans. Bye-bye to the massive TV budgets for White House specials and the firehose of publishing deals for books about the administration. NPD BookScan, which tracks book sales in the U.S., said that prominent books about Trump released in his first two years of office outsold Biden books during his first year and a half by, what an official there said was, “essentially 10:1.”…
…
Biden, by contrast, has been a journalistic sedative. The 79-year-old president is not immune to political controversy or making news, having made several recent proclamations about his goals for the Russia-invasion of Ukraine that went far beyond his administration’s stated policy.
But attention isn’t his brand, the way it is with Trump, and his staff exerts far more control over his time and his media interactions, alongside their efforts to eliminate traces of palace intrigue from political coverage. The president does few interviews and his communications team has an informal policy of not engaging in gossip stories (whether they always stick to it is another question) and chide reporters who they don’t think focus enough on policy. Press secretary Jen Psaki rarely expresses emotion from the podium, where she speaks slowly and avoids lengthy confrontations with reporters….
image ….The Atlantic
Boring?
Yeah probably
But that’s got nothing to do with his unpopularity.
One word….
Inflation.
Inflation and a looming Recession ain’t helping his poll numbers….
But?
As the piece points out?
The thing’s that got himn elected?
Stability and his anti-Trumpism…
Seem to be in second place to the perceptions of
EXTREME avoidance conflict, dullness and media invisisibity….