Not quite a year ago — May 2022 — Jen Psaki stepped away from her role as the White House press secretary for President Joe Biden. At the time, there were already rumors that she was going to do what so many White House press secretaries do: television.
With a sterling reputation as an unflappable press secretary, previous TV experience and a quick-on-her-feet sense of humor and repartee, Psaki seemed perfect for television.
Almost as soon as she left the White House, the announcement was made: Psaki would join MSNBC as a host and commentator. She has been commentating all along. But now she will be a host.
MSNBC announced Tuesday that Psaki will host a weekly talk show starting March 19. The show — “Inside With Jen Psaki” — will air Sundays at noon (and stream the next day on Peacock). That’s an interesting time slot that will put Psaki in the vicinity of some of the iconic Sunday morning news shows such as “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation.”
However, Psaki hopes her show occasionally ventures outside the world of politics to also include celebrities and athletes. But you would think her strength — and why MSNBC signed her to begin with — is her political expertise and connections.
The big question: How will she treat the current administration, i.e. her former boss?
Some former press secretaries went on to become respected journalists: Pierre Salinger, George Stephanopoulos and Dana Perino. Diane Sawyer also worked in White House communications. All went on to provide, mostly, fair and appropriate journalism.
Will Psaki be like one of them? Or will she be like Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who has continued being a right-wing mouthpiece on Fox News?
Psaki told The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum, “I’m very conscious of the fact that people know who I am because I was standing behind a podium speaking on behalf of Joe Biden. I am not going to gratuitously attack him, nor am I going to gratuitously applaud him. If he deserves applause, I will applaud him. If he deserves critique, I will critique him.”
Then again, while Fox News viewers likely are OK with McEnany’s pro-conservative commentary, perhaps MSNBC viewers might be willing to give Psaki a little more leeway if her commentary drifts left. Psaki reached out to Stephanopoulos, who worked for President Bill Clinton, for advice.
In an interview with Grynbaum, Stephanopoulos said he told Psaki, “The balancing act is, how are you consistent with your past work and your past beliefs, and still constructive for the audience. That’s applicable then, today and tomorrow.”
Psaki won’t just do a Sunday show. She also will write a regular column for the network’s morning newsletter, “MSNBC Daily,” and is developing a new original streaming and social show, both set to launch this spring. She also will continue to provide commentary for NBC News and MSNBC on big news stories, especially election coverage.
All eyes will be on Psaki to see what kind of host she will be.
“I am not going on television to be a mouthpiece,” she told Grynbaum.
In the wrong hands?
So it’s official now. As Axios first reported and as I wrote about in Tuesday’s newsletter, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has turned over more than 40,000 hours worth of U.S. Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 insurrection to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.
Carlson said on his show Monday that his producers have already been looking at the footage for about a week now, adding, “Our producers, some of our smartest producers, have been looking at this stuff and trying to figure out what it means and how it contradicts or not the story we’ve been told for more than two years. We think already in some ways that it does contradict that story.”
Carlson is expected to start airing his so-called findings starting next week.
To be clear, Carlson has downplayed the insurrection — in fact, refusing to even call it an insurrection, among other comments that the events of Jan. 6 have been overblown.
I received emails from newsletter readers with common questions: Why does Carlson get an exclusive look at the footage? Why share it just with the conservative Fox News? Why not share it with CNN, too? Why not make it public so all news outlets can have access to it?
But there was also this sentiment: Should this footage be shared at all with anyone?
While Carlson has said that there has never been a “legitimate reason” why the footage should remain secret and that no “honest person” should be bothered about it being made public, some argue that it could be dangerous. Specifically, there are those who worry that the footage could be used as a sort of training video for future insurrections. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee and former chair of the Jan. 6 committee, said in a statement, “It’s hard to overstate the potential security risks if this material were to be used irresponsibly.”
Tim Mulvey, a former senior staff member and spokesman for the Jan. 6 committee, said in a statement to The Washington Post that even when the Jan. 6 committee obtained access to U.S. Capitol Police video footage “it was treated with great sensitivity given concerns about the security of lawmakers, staff, and the Capitol complex. Access was limited to members and a small handful of investigators and senior staff, and the public use of any footage was coordinated in advance with Capitol Police. It’s hard to overstate the potential security risks if this material were used irresponsibly.”
And that’s the fear now that Carlson has access to the video.
The secret trip
President Joe Biden, left, walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine on Monday. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Here are a few more details about how President Joe Biden pulled off a secret trip to Ukraine earlier this week. This comes from The Washington Post’s Matt Viser and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. They reported that Biden told aides months ago that he wanted to go to Ukraine, but the decision to go wasn’t made until last Friday — less than 48 hours before he left Washington.
Viser and Wootson wrote, “That decision set in motion a stealthy plan that involved a close hold on information, with just two journalists summoned that afternoon and told of the trip so they could prepare to be on it. They were told to watch for an email with the subject line ‘Arrival instructions for the golf tourney’ that would provide further instructions.”
The story has a lot more cloak-and-dagger details, but I just loved that the journalists invited to come along were told to be on the lookout for an email with the subject line of “Arrival instructions for the golf tourney.”
Meanwhile, here’s an insightful report from one of the two journalists who actually made the trip. It’s The Wall Street Journal’s Sabrina Siddiqui with “Biden’s Kyiv Visit Was Months in the Making.”
Siddiqui wrote, “Only two journalists, rather than the typical pool of about a dozen who trail a president on such trips, were gathered at Andrews Air Force Base in the early hours of Sunday. One of them was with The Wall Street Journal. They were instructed to turn over their phones and were barred for security reasons to do any reporting on Mr. Biden’s whereabouts in real time.”
Defining the times
A few weeks back I wrote a newsletter item about NFL Hall of Fame coach and broadcaster Tony Dungy and a tweet he sent out and deleted that repeated a long-debunked story that schools were putting litter boxes in bathrooms for children who identified as cats.
I then received several emails from angry readers who felt Dungy did nothing wrong and, during the course of our back-and-forth email exchanges, I was called “woke” by almost all of them. In each case, I asked them to define what the word “woke” meant, and in each case, I never heard back.
That brings me to today and this story from The Washington Post’s Ashley Parker and Liz Goodwin: “Republicans use ‘wokeism’ to attack left — but struggle to define it.”
Parker and Goodwin wrote, “Republican politicians and voters alike have differing definitions of wokeism — and some struggle to define it at all. The rallying cry has recently been used to denounce everything from climate change policies and socially responsible investing to transgender rights, critical-race theory and the Black Lives Matter movement.”
They added, “Much like the ‘cancel’ of ‘cancel culture,’ ‘woke’ is another word that originated in Black culture before being co-opted by White people.”
Check out the Post story for a good understanding of how the right is using the word “woke” as a political weapon — one that could possibly and ultimately backfire.
Letters from Sing Sing
(Courtesy: NBC News)
Looking for a new podcast? Check out “Letters from Sing Sing” from NBC News.
The podcast, hosted by longtime NBC News investigative producer Dan Slepian, investigates the case of Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez, a man formerly imprisoned at Sing Sing for more than 23 years for a murder he says he did not commit.
The first two episodes of the seven-episode series are out. New episodes will drop every Monday through March 27.
Media tidbits
- Vanity Fair’s Charlotte Klein with “Dozens of New York Times journalists hit staff union for its defense of trans coverage criticism.”
- “CBS Mornings” anchor Gayle King has received the 39th Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Find more details here.
- Hannah Holycross of The State News, the student newspaper at Michigan State University, talks with CNN’s Adrienne Broaddus in “MSU alumna discusses emotions on returning to campus to cover mass shooting.”
- Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin with “NYT Reporters James Stewart and Rachel Abrams Dish on the Sordid Drama of Sumner Redstone’s Media Empire.”
- Also from Mediaite, Luke Kane with “Boston Sports Talk Radio Host Gives Emotional Apology After ‘Hurtful’ Comments About Black People.” And there’s more: The Boston Herald’s Rick Sobey with “Tony Massarotti has been suspended for ‘racist’ comment on 98.5 about Black people behind Mike Felger.”
Hot type
- Stupendous work from the CNN international investigative unit and visuals team with “How Iran used a network of secret torture centers to crush an uprising.”
- For Vox, Rachel M. Cohen with “America’s afternoon afterthought: The hours between school dismissal and the end of the workday are a mess. They don’t have to be.”
- HBO’s “Succession” returns for season four in a month. If you’re a huge fan like me, you just can’t wait. Here’s a little (well, a lot of) something to tide you over until then: GQ’s Gabriella Paiella profiles one of the show’s stars in “Jeremy Strong Will Never Break.”
More resources for journalists
- Subscribe to PolitiFact’s weekly newsletter. Get facts delivered straight to your inbox.
- Poynter’s Beat Academy (March-Oct.) (Webinar series) — Enroll now.
- Essential Skills for Rising Newsroom Leaders (Seminar) — Apply by Feb. 27.
- Lead With Influence (July 2023) (Seminar) — Apply by June 2.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
The Poynter Report is our daily media newsletter. To have it delivered to your inbox Monday-Friday, sign up here.
