In defense of Biden ice cream questions
There is no Pulitzer for pooling
Welcome to another weekend of snarky social media slamming the White House press corps for asking President Joe Biden about his ice cream order.
Like this tweet
Following Biden around discussing ice cream flavors but neglecting the myriads of scandals in his White House. Give this man a Pulitzer!
Eli Stokols
@EliStokols
Biden’s @MoomersIceCream order: double-dipped waffle cone with vanilla chocolate chip.
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10:46 AM · Jul 4, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
And this piece in the National Review, in which Kyle Smith writes,
This was one of dozens of similar examples of coverage of Biden hitting Wisconsin like a treat-seeking missile. In the rare moments when the media get to fire questions at Biden, they tend to be easily distracted by frozen props.
This is what the critics are missing.
The ice cream questions exist because the press pool follows Biden where he goes, and he often goes out for ice cream.
Because it is too cumbersome for the entire press corps to follow a president throughout the day, a pool made up of print, broadcast and other media acts as proxies for the press corps.
The pool’s job is to report to other journalists what they see and hear in close to real time. Detail is essential, as well as color. Pool reports often go at length about hand-shakes, for example. Such details allow those who weren’t in the room to report as if they were.
The “what flavor” question can lead to information for the pool report and it’s an ice breaker for more newsy questions.
Not that news-breaking answers will follow. As the New York Post’s Steve Nelson wrote in a story about the snark that followed a May ice cream run (with the usual flavor question):
Biden did face a slightly harder question while digging further into his cone — but the answer came right back to the summery treat.
A reporter inquired, “Mr. President, what is your message to Republicans who are prepared to block the Jan. 6 commission?”
“Eat some chocolate chocolate chip,” Biden said.
There were more newsy questions Saturday, as travel pool reporter Francesca Chambers of McClatchy noted in one of her 18 pool reports that day:
On the ransomware attack, he said he got a brief on the plane, which is why he was late getting off. He pulled a notecard out of his jacket pocket and said he’s directed the “full resources of the federal government” to investigate and that he told Putin (in Geneva) that if his government is deemed to be responsible for the more stuff like this the US will respond. “The initial thinking was it was not the Russian government, but we’re not sure yet,” he said.
On the Olympic sprinters marijuana ban: “The rules are the rules,” he said, adding, “I was really proud of the way she responded.”
To sum up: There is no Pulitzer for pooling. It’s part of the daily grind of covering a White House, a beat that requires policy chops, but also a little flavor.
No reporter who tweets on Biden’s cones thinks that his ice cream picks are big news. They’re the stuff of tweets, which by definition tend to be superficial.
So it’s sort of superficial to complain about it.
If you want to judge the White House Press Corps questions, judge the press corps by questions posed at briefings and news conferences, which are more amendable to thoughtful responses. Not that thoughtful responses necessarily follow.
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.
THIS!!! Thank you.