‘Slip of the tongue’ or slippery slope?
Should Sarah Sanders be fired? Should she resign? Or was she just doing her job?
One of the secondary stories to come out of the Mueller report was the revelation that the White House press secretary has lied to the media. One specific example was May 10, 2017, when Sanders told reporters that “countless” FBI agents said they had lost confidence in James Comey, who had been fired as FBI director the day before. But the Mueller report says Sanders made that up. She said it was a “slip of the tongue,” although she said it on more than one occasion, as ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos noted during a contentious interview on Friday’s “Good Morning America.”
Should Sanders be fired? Should she resign because she no longer has credibility? NBC News THINK contributor Kurt Bardella believes she should lose her job. He wrote:
“It is not an understatement to suggest that Sanders’ willingness to flagrantly and frequently lie to the American people is corrosive to our American way of life.”
He continued: “If we cannot trust Sanders to tell us the truth about things like the firing of the FBI director, how can we trust her when she’s briefing the American people about a school shooting or a hurricane or an adversarial foreign power’s effort to undermine our elections? Why should any reporter believe any statement she gives ever again?”
On CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” host Brian Stelter was more direct in setting up a panel discussion that, essentially, called for Sanders’ job. Stelter said, “Sarah Sanders is a press secretary with zero credibility. Why does she still have a job?”
Certainly Sanders is not the first press secretary to lie to the media. Sometimes it might even be necessary to lie to keep from putting lives in danger, such as when talking about military maneuvers or certain foreign relations. In the case of Sanders, however, her lies appear to have been about pushing the president’s agenda, not protecting national secrets.
As the New York Times writes, her “slip of the tongue” would normally be a problem, but perhaps not in Donald Trump’s administration.
‘It depends …’
The biggest shake-your-head question-and-answer exchange of the weekend came on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when host Chuck Todd interviewed Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Todd: “So it is now OK for political campaigns to work with materials stolen by foreign adversaries?”
Giuliani: “Well, it depends on the stolen material.”
That barely beat out the second-most head-shaking exchange, which was Giuliani telling CNN’s Jake Tapper that there is “nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.”
As veteran journalist Soledad O’Brien tweeted: anyone who puts Giuliani on the air from now on should remember that statement.
Ambush or appropriate?
MSNBC reporter Mike Viqueira asked all the right questions of Robert Mueller. He asked Mueller if he was going to testify before Congress. He asked if it was anybody but the president, would he have been indicted. He asked why Mueller didn’t make a recommendation to Congress. He asked if the attorney general accurately characterized Mueller’s position about President Trump.
No one can argue these were pertinent questions to ask. The debate is where and when Viqueira asked the questions: as Mueller tried to get into his SUV on Sunday following Easter services.
Was Viqueira doing his job as a dogged journalist? Or did he cross a line by pestering someone trying to enjoy and observe Easter?
Twitter was flooded with those criticizing Viqueira, calling him classless and disrespectful and saying his questions were an “ambush.” Many thought Viqueira was out of line for pursuing Mueller outside of church on Easter Sunday.
But Viqueira was doing his job. Mueller just completed one of the most important investigations in U.S. history. He was standing on a public sidewalk. He has not spoken publicly in two years.
Mueller chose to say “no comment,” which is his right. And a man who just spent two years investigating the President of the United States and the Russians certainly can (and did) sidestep the reporter. Mueller’s Easter was hardly ruined by 30 seconds of questions that he basically ignored. And Viqueira’s questions were certainly responsible — journalistically and ethically.
A lesson in context
A TV station in Odessa, Texas, is under criticism for airing a piece that some felt promoted anti-Muslim biases. KOSA-TV, a CBS affiliate, ran a story last week where two white European women spoke to the Midland County Women’s Republican Club. The women — one from England and another from Sweden — spoke of how Muslim immigration has impacted their countries and could potentially impact the United States.
Several national journalists criticized the report, including New York Magazine contributor Yashir Ali, who called the story “despicable” and HuffPost editor-in-chief Lydia Polgreen, who said the story was “shocking.”
KOSA issued a statement to Newsweek regretting the story:
“KOSA-TV aired a story regarding the Midland County Republican Women and Midland County Republican Party inviting Katie Hopkins and Elizabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff to give an anti-Muslim speech to local residents. Our report did not provide pertinent information on the speaker’s backgrounds for context. We regret the information was not included and have discussed with news management to ensure that future reporting on such issues meets our journalistic standards.”
Hot type
- What CNN learned from watching Robert Mueller for 18 months.
- The CEO of Pride Media abruptly steps down, the New York Post reports.
- James Houlzhauer is absolutely killing it on Jeopardy, setting all kinds of one-day records. How is he doing it? The Ringer’s Claire McNear explores.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
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