At the same time Biden is being publicly pressured by worried House Democrats to step down, the Democratic Party’s cheerleaders in the newsrooms are working from the same playbook over fears his declining health could help elect Donald Trump in November. That fear was evident late last week, when numerous liberal reporters demanded answers from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary.
“Is anyone in the White House hiding information about the President's health or his ability to do the job day-to-day?” Kelly O’Donnell, of NBC News, demanded to know.
“After the debate, did the President get examined by a doctor or did he get a neurological scan?” Weijia Jang, of CBS News, asked.
Other accusatory questions about Biden’s mental and physical health came from The Associated Press, The Daily Mail, ABC News, The Independent, USA Today, and The Washington Post, according to a detailed story by the Media Research Center.
Don Irvine, of Accuracy in Media, tells AFN the public is being asked to believe our press corps is shocked over Biden’s cognitive abilities but he says the real story is the media’s cover has been blown.
“To see them reverse course and say, you know, how stunned they were about this, is just a complete joke,” he complains.
Another example of journalism malfeasance is the revelation the White House fed questions to two radio interviewers before they interviewed Biden last week. Biden was seeking air time for a majority-black audience, in Wisconsin and in Philadelphia, but show host Andrea Lawful Sanders was fired by WURD for cooperating.
Reacting to that political arrangement, Tim Graham of the Media Research Center tells AFN the topic and the timing were important.
"The President was doling out very limited interviews on the subject of his acuity," Graham says. "That would seem to me not to be the best time to just accept whatever questions the White House is giving you."
The media’s sudden ethical disapproval of that arrangement comes after President Biden was photographed in 2023 holding cheat cards with reporters’ names and questions (pictured at left) at a White House press conference in 2023. Biden was also spotted with a similar cheat sheet in April of last year, now 15 months ago.
Irvine says a lingering question for many is if reporters and correspondents have suddenly discovered what real journalism looks like or if the political knives have come out for Biden.
“They know what journalism is,” he concludes. “They just haven't been practicing very good journalism for a while.”
Editor's Note: This story has been updated with comments from Tim Graham of the Media Research Center.
