CNN Found an Excellent Workaround for the White House’s Camera Ban

Over the last five months (sweet Christmas, how has it only been five months?), Sean Spicer and the rest of the White House team have made a number of attempts to get around that whole pesky “free & independent press” thing. They’ve tried having closed-door, invitation-only briefings (that didn’t go over well), they’ve tried hiding in bushes (ditto), and now they’ve banned cameras from the White House press briefings.

So CNN did the only reasonable thing: they brought in their courtroom sketch artist to cover the briefing.

This not only highlights the absurdity of the Trump administration’s efforts to avoid accountability and keep the press from reporting all the “alternative facts” that come out of these briefings, but it allows CNN’s Jim Acosta to make a Grade-A Dad Pun.

Others were having just as much fun.

Others, though, weren’t feeling the jokes. Because while we do need to be able to point out the absurdity of the Trump administration, the degree to which the White House is fighting to restrict journalists’ access to the office of the President is not normal, and not democratic. It’s a legitimate threat to the First Amendment, and cheeky jabs aside, the press needs to put up a fight.

Because the sketch is a cute visual and makes for good headlines, but it can’t get across the buckets of misinformation Spicer spewed out up at that podium.

(featured image: NBC)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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