廢除白宮記者團 唐納德·川普對媒體的惡意態度，反而給了媒體一個改革其總統報道方式的機會。
美國| 列剋星敦
廢除白宮記者團
唐納德·川普對媒體的惡意態度，反而給了媒體一個改革其總統報道方式的機會。
我如果美國總統想要操縱一些最優秀的記者——讓他們專注於自己的政治優先事項，轉移他們對政府真正運作的注意力，並招募他們散佈自己的宣傳——那麼他能做的最好的事情莫過於創立白宮記者團。記者們對唐納德·川普專橫跋扈、斤斤計較地試圖將他不喜歡的媒體機構拒之門外感到憤怒，這是可以理解的。但他們說他會破壞新聞自由是錯的。事實上，他至少會加強新聞自由，至少對於那些被他針對的記者而言是如此。他會將他們從報道那些和其他記者一樣千篇一律的、事先安排好的活動和簡報會的枯燥工作中解放出來。他也為新聞媒體提供了一個機會，讓他們可以摒棄白宮記者團那些陳舊、腐敗且幼稚的儀式。
幾十年來，總統及其助手都深諳將記者集中到白宮新聞發布室的妙處。一旦他們被限制在那裡，就如同擴音器一般方便，而且也更不容易惹是生非。 「如果他們分散在城裡各處的辦公室裡，情況會好得多，」麥可·迪弗曾這樣說道。他曾擔任羅納德·雷根的形象顧問，並磨練了電視時代操縱媒體的技巧。 「如果他們自由行動，就會四處奔波，挖掘新聞，找到屬於自己的故事。」長期以來，嚴肅的白宮記者們一直抱怨著他們所從事的這份工作與其所處的枯燥乏味之間存在的巨大落差。
儘管科技進步徹底改變了新聞業，但白宮記者會的慣例基本上與過去別無二致。一位來自網路時代之前的「時間旅行者」會認出新聞發布室裡擠滿了人——他也會理所當然地感到困惑，為何與此同時，全國乃至世界各地如此多的新聞機構和出版物卻紛紛關門歇業。許多新聞機構在白宮設有辦事處，派駐記者。由十幾名來自電視台、報紙和其他機構的記者組成的「記者團」隨時待命，以備總統在橢圓形辦公室發表演說。總統出遊時，記者團會隨總統乘坐空軍一號。參與的機構共同承擔記者團的費用，並分享報道內容，該記者團由白宮記者協會組織。
媒體將這種“設陷阱”視為“採訪權”，並將只在總統及其助手選擇的時間和地點進行報告的權利視為“透明度”。如果這種採訪權和透明度真的有價值，那麼當2024年喬·拜登總統蹣跚地從發言人身後走出來與川普先生辯論時，美國民眾就不會感到震驚了。這遠非白宮第一次懲罰批評者、獎勵阿諛奉承者，而白宮記者對採訪權的過度重視可能會腐蝕人心。這也是讀者會看到這麼多對幕僚長的奉承之詞的原因之一。近代以來白宮最大的醜聞——水門事件、伊朗門事件、川普試圖勒索烏克蘭調查拜登父子的事件——都不是由白宮記者揭露的。筆者曾在比爾·柯林頓擔任總統期間擔任白宮記者，至今仍不願回憶起1998年接到一位編輯的電話：他在德拉吉報道上讀到的關於總統與實習生有染的那些東西到底是怎麼回事？
在柯林頓執政時期，新聞秘書麥可·麥克里決定允許每日記者會進行電視直播。他後來對此感到後悔，因為發表會變成了作秀。如今，記者提出尖銳的問題，發言人則對他們進行侮辱。這或許能娛樂政治愛好者，但卻鮮少有助於真相的揭露。早在吉米卡特時期，總統及其助手就以提前預判問題為榮。而如今，媒體卻被誘入扮演「波將金式」反對派的角色，顯得不再獨立，而是帶有黨派色彩。作為舞台上的對手，白宮記者們更像是為總統的利益服務，而非公眾的利益。
川普先生比媒體更了解媒體自身。他是歷史學家丹尼爾·布爾斯廷所稱的「偽事件」的高手。這種偽事件並非指突如其來的事件──例如地震──而是指為了製造新聞、塑造輿論而精心策劃的事件，例如簽署行政命令。布爾斯廷將偽新聞的興起與科技進步連結起來，科技進步使得大眾即時通訊成為可能，也加劇了大眾對新事物的渴望。他寫這篇文章是在1961年。如今，偽事件已成為每屆總統都樂於講述的故事。正如麥克庫裡先生曾經說過的那樣，“現代總統制的定義就是對新聞流的操縱，而且是全天候24小時不間斷的。”
讓湯姆·索亞自己粉刷柵欄
但現在，媒體已無需再浪費稀缺資源，淪為總統的偽事件傳播機器。與其與川普爭奪採訪權——這或許正中總統下懷，引發一場選民並不關心的爭議（與油價不同）——新聞機構不如將他的冒犯視為解散記者團和白宮記者協會的契機。
讓白宮直播自己的活動，然後從中挑選出有新聞價值的部分。讓所有白宮記者，就像現在一些最優秀的記者一樣，在必要時在線觀看簡報，並通過電話、安全應用程序或在比白宮更不公開的場所進行採訪來拓展消息來源。川普先生是現代總統中最平易近人（即便他並不透明或負責任）的一位，他肯定會繼續接聽電話。不要抵制任何一位總統，但也不要像朝臣一樣對任何一位總統畢恭畢敬。記者們失去的只是他們的鎖鍊和那場一年一度的自我諷刺盛宴──白宮記者晚宴。
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United States | Lexington
Abolish the White House press corps
With his spitefulness to the press, Donald Trump is giving it the chance to reform how it covers the presidency
If an American president set out to manipulate some of the best reporters—to preoccupy them with his political priorities, to distract them from what is really happening in government and to recruit them to distribute his propaganda—he could do no better than to invent the White House press corps. Journalists are understandably upset that Donald Trump, in his imperious pettiness, is trying to ban from the White House those news organisations of which he disapproves. But they are wrong to say he would be undermining press freedom. He would actually be enhancing it, at least for those reporters he has targeted. He would be liberating them from the drudgery of covering the same staged events and briefings as a legion of other journalists. He is also giving the news media an opening to do away with the antiquated, corrupting and infantilising rituals of the White House press corps.
For decades, presidents and their aides have recognised how useful it is to herd reporters into the White House press room. Once contained there, they are handy as a megaphone, and they are less likely to cause trouble. “They’d be much better off if they were in offices scattered all over town,” Michael Deaver, who as Ronald Reagan’s image-maker honed television-age methods for manipulating the press, once remarked. “If they were out on their own, they’d be hustling and digging and getting their own stories.” Serious White House reporters have long rued the gap between the prestige of their beat and its tedium and banality.
Yet despite advances in technology that have transformed the news business, White House press practice remains basically the same as in bygone days. A time-traveller from before the internet age would recognise the standing-room-only crowd packed into the briefing room—and would rightly struggle to understand how, at the same time, so many news bureaus across the country and around the world, and entire publications, could have closed their doors. Many news organisations maintain desks in the White House, stationing journalists there. A press “pool” with a rotating cast of a dozen or so journalists drawn from television, newspapers and other organisations idles on standby in case the president wants to emit commentary from the Oval Office, and it flies along with him on Air Force One when he travels. The participating outfits bear the costs and share the reporting of the pool, organised by the White House Correspondents’ Association.
The press prizes this entrapment as “access” and the chance to report on the president and his aides only when and where they choose as “transparency”. If such access and transparency had value, Americans would not have been shocked when, in 2024, President Joe Biden doddered out from behind his spokesmen to debate with Mr Trump. This is far from the first White House to punish critics and reward sycophants, and the emphasis White House reporters place on access can be corrupting. It is one reason readers encounter so many flattering references to chiefs of staff. The biggest scandals of the White House in modern times—Watergate, Iran-Contra, Mr Trump’s attempt to extort a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens—were not revealed by White House reporters. Your columnist, who served as a White House correspondent when Bill Clinton was president, dreads to remember the call from an editor in 1998: what was all this he was reading on the Drudge Report about a presidential affair with an intern?
It was during the Clinton years that the press secretary, Michael McCurry, decided to allow the daily press briefings to be televised live. He came to lament this, because the briefings became performative. Today, reporters ask combative questions and spokespeople insult them. This is entertaining for political junkies but seldom advances the cause of truth. As far back as Jimmy Carter, presidents and their aides have prided themselves on anticipating questions in advance. And by being suckered into playing the role of a Potemkin opposition, the press appears not independent but partisan. As theatrical antagonists, White House reporters serve the president’s interests more than the public’s.
Mr Trump understands the media better than it understands itself. He is a master of what the historian Daniel Boorstin called the “pseudo event”. This is not news in the form of an unexpected development—an earthquake—but an event staged to create news and shape public opinion, such as the signing of an executive order. Boorstin connected the rise of pseudo news to the advance of technology that enabled mass, instant communication, sharpening the public’s appetite for novelty. He was writing in 1961. Pseudo events now tell the preferred story of every presidency. As Mr McCurry once put it, “The modern presidency is defined by the manipulation of the newsflow, 24 hours a day.”
Make Tom Sawyer paint his own fence
But there is no need, any more, for the press to squander scarce resources serving as the president’s pseudo-event distribution machine. Rather than fight Mr Trump over access—giving the president what he probably wants, a distracting controversy over something voters do not care about, unlike prices at the pump—news organisations should treat his affront as an invitation to disband the pool and the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Let the White House live-stream its own events, and pick out the newsworthy bits. Let all White House correspondents, as some of the best do now, watch briefings online if relevant and cultivate sources by phone, secure app, or interview in a less public venue than the White House. Mr Trump, the most accessible (if not transparent or accountable) of modern presidents, will surely keep picking up the phone. Do not boycott any president, but do not wait like courtiers upon any, either. The reporters have nothing to lose but their chains and that annual carnival of self-satire, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. ■
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