Journalism, or at least what figures as journalism nowadays, got front-and-center today in another dust-up between the marvelous Jen Psaki, and Fox News‘ Peter Doocy, one tone-deaf dumb-ass:

Highlights via Raw Story:

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki disputed Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy on Wednesday about the importance of voting rights.
During a press briefing, Doocy attempted to compare President Joe Biden to Texas lawmakers who recently fled their state to prevent Republicans in the legislature from restricting voting rights.

“Do you know of any examples from his 36 years in the Senate that Joe Biden just hopped on a train and left town to avoid a vote that he knew he was going to lose?” Doocy asked.

“Welcome back,” Psaki replied.
“I think the president’s view is that these Texas legislators were making a statement through actions in opposition to efforts in their state to oppose restrictions on people’s fundamental rights and their rights to vote in their state.”

“Maybe it’s funny to think about it that way,” Doocy said.

“I don’t think anything about this is funny,” Psaki interrupted.
“I think what is important to note though here is that there are 28 states, including Texas, where there are laws in place or in process to make it harder to vote and it requires bold action, it requires bold voices to speak out against that and make sure people understand their rights.”

Doocy is a dumb-ass thickly….

In context, reporters covering Joe Biden’s White House, including the good-offices of Jen Psaki, don’t regard this administration as good and ‘dramatic’for their media careers. Despite the actual-real horror of the T-Rump, reporting was apparently more fun ‘back then.’
Eric Boehlert’s PressRun from this morning looks at the difference between Biden and the T-Rump’s journalism — maybe main points:

More proof of the media’s contempt for Biden, and their resentment for his No Drama approach, was found in a recent newsletter by D.C. journalist Julia Ioffe, who explored how journalists are reacting to the new Democratic administration, in the wake of the Trump media circus.

“People you’ve likely read or heard of or watched were concerned about what a Trump loss would mean for their career. That was the talk of the town,” she wrote.

The man who launched an unprecedented crusade to overthrow a verified American election was leaving office, and a key topic of discussion among journalists was how that would that affect their careers (“Would anyone buy Trump books anymore?”), and by extension, would “boring” Joe Biden be bad for business?

Talk about the Navel Gazing Olympics.

With a professional, gossip-free Democrat in the White House, journalists are lashing out.
“They know how to push back and fight over headlines and parcel out dumb pre-approved scoops to people who will write about it the way they want,” one Beltway media insider said of the Biden White House, oblivious to the fact that the press typed up dumb Trump White House stories for four years, without complaint.
Remember the spoon-fed media narrative that Trump was “distracted” and that’s why he ignored the Covid pandemic as it eviscerated the American economy and killed thousands in the spring of 2020?

Journalists are quietly seething at the Biden White House.
“Kudos to them, they’re very happy with themselves” one anonymous journalist told Ioffe.
“You can see it, the coverage across the board from everyone is very, very lame. You never get inside the room and hear how this shit’s going down. Like, how are they managing this elderly man?”

Added another, “There’s a sense that Biden’s position is fragile and that he has to be protected, that any unkind gaze might knock him over—which plays into every right-wing stereotype.”
And a third: “I don’t know that there’s been a president who’s been so protected and wrapped in so many layers of wool to keep him away from anything remotely approaching an adversarial interview.”
Another journalist belittled Biden as “an old man watching his dog.”

Oh, how they miss the Orange One.

“I loved covering Trump,” one prominent White House reporter said.
“It was a great and fascinating story. It wasn’t just about him; it was about his movement and the institutions and America. The story was always so dramatic and had these larger than life characters. The stakes often felt very high. I like covering Biden, too, but it just doesn’t feel as dramatic.”

A certain kind of shame in that, or least there should be…

(Illustration out front: ‘Jen Psaki,’ found here).