NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham appeared on the Fox Business show Varney & Co. on Tuesday morning to discuss his nationally syndicated column on reporters who have screamed in the White House briefing room. Host Stuart Varney showed some very polite questions from correspondents in the Biden White House briefing room.
Varney asked if there were any reporters who were "willing to take on Biden, given all this failures?" Graham replied "I'd have to start with the reporters from Fox and Fox Business, you know?" So there's Steve Doocy and Jacqui Heinrich from Fox, as well as Ed Lawrence and Hillary Vaughn from Fox Business. He noted they challenge Biden and press aides politely, no screaming.
Varney asked if there was anyone else. "There are a few others," he said. There's Philip Wegmann at Real Clear Politics, James Rosen of Newsmax, and Blake Burman of NewsNation.
TIM GRAHAM: You know what it really depends on? Yes, the regular pattern is sort of a very polite how are you today, sir. There's not a challenge. There has to be something going seriously wrong that's actually going to harm Democrats before they start going "wait a minute," you know? When baby formula's delayed, oh, "wait a minute," you know?
They have their moments. After the Afghanistan withdrawal, they were tough for a while. So occasionally. But it's not the norm. Yes, the norm is patty-cake, and it is dramatically different from Jim Acosta or Brian Karem or April Ryan yelling at the president with their partisan lectures.
Varney then asked if April Ryan "took a job" on TV after her antics. Graham noted she became a CNN analyst. (He also said Jim Acosta became a CNN analyst, but that was an oops -- Acosta was their screaming CNN reporter. We'll guess he meant Karem, the Playboy writer, as he mentioned in his column.)
GRAHAM: And I think that clearly told you this was the CNN business model. They liked being impolite to Trump, and they knew their viewers liked reporters being impolite to Trump. And you'll remember it was Jeff Zeleny that asked Barack Obama, you know, what's enchanted you about the first 100 days?
Zeleny has been a CNN reporter since 2015, but asked this LOL softball in 2009 when he was with The New York Times.
Varney then ran a clip of Whoopi Goldberg ranting on The View about political correctness and how a Mississippi news anchor was at least suspended for being racially offensive: "If you're a person of a certain age, there's stuff we do and we say just because we're on television doesn't mean we know everything!" He asked if political correctness was fading now. Graham disagreed with that:
GRAHAM: I think we're in a standard of "diversity, equity and inclusion." I mean, it's interesting for Whoopi to stick up for this woman who apparently had said a Snoop Dogg lyric that sort of included the N-word although it wasn't the N-word. And so I guess the notion is once again if you're white and you're on television, don't quote rappers! That's just a dangerous place to be.
But, you know, good for Whoopi, I guess. But, I mean, she's made these sorts of mistakes, too, like when she said the Holocaust wasn't about race. And so that's where she probably got defensive.
This segment was sponsored in part by Life Alert.
