The White House appeared to have taken unprecedented steps to silence one journalist during Monday’s press briefing — Today News Africa’s Simon Ateba. Following the incident, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s promise of media transparency has come into question—AGAIN!
In the edited version of the press briefing posted to YouTube by the White House, Ateba’s interaction with Jean-Pierre was cut out. However, in other streams of the press briefing, it became evident that Ateba had a heated exchange with the press secretary after accusing her of discriminating against him for reportedly not calling on him in the past nine months.
“You’ve been discriminating against me for the past nine months,” Ateba alleged.
When Jean-Pierre attempted to call on another reporter, Ateba continued.
“If this continues, we’re gonna end the press briefing,” Jean- Pierre threatened him. “If this continues — you’re being incredibly rude. You’re being incredibly rude. You’re talking over your colleagues.”
The incident calls into question President Joe Biden’s promise to bring back integrity and transparency to the White House. If his press secretary is actively editing reports from the press briefing, with the aim to silence practitioners, who can the public trust to deliver the truth?
Ateba’s alleged discrimination shows that there may be a lack of balanced reporting coming from the White House, and from the current administration. It appears that Ateba was actively silenced for calling out what he believed to be unfair bias on the part of the press secretary.
At the same time, it is concerning that the White House chose to edit the video that was posted publically, in attempts to censor what was actually discussed and said.
This incident only propagates a mistrust of the current administration and reveals that the Biden-Harris White House is more focused on censorship and containment than they are transparency and honesty.
By editing out the debate, it appears that the White House has chosen to exercise its power to control media discourse, rather than exchanging an honest view of the current situation.
What remains to be seen is whether the White House truly views media transparency as an integral part of this new administration, or whether they are simply using it as a facade for their own form of censorship.