No Longer Daily, White House Press Briefings Fade As Trump Does The Talking
Press secretary Sarah Sanders last walked up to the lectern in the White House press briefing room on Oct. 3 after a 23-day drought. Before that, there had been an 18-day stretch with no briefing.
Early in the Trump administration, the regular White House press briefings were must-see TV, getting big ratings for the sparring between press secretary and press. In recent months, though, the briefings have shrunk away to the point where calling them "daily" would be a severe misnomer.
"It's an important forum for the public, and we shouldn't let it go," says Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project and a political scientist who for years has sat in on the White House briefings.
The number of briefings began declining in the spring, falling below levels of the last two administrations at the same point in their presidencies. It dropped precipitously in the past two months.
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/11/656661343/no-longer-daily-white-house-press-briefings-fade-as-trump-does-the-talking
