Why The Democrats Should Hold A Daily Press Briefing

Whether or not you're a supporter of Donald Trump, it's clear that the President's primary way of governing is by manipulating press coverage of his administration. He understands on some visceral level that cable news channels abhor a vacuum and if there isn't something going on that fits into their vague catch-all category of "newsworthy," then they'll have to go looking for something to talk about. The President understands that whether the talking point of the day is positive or negative matters less than the fact the press is distracted about him and his Administration. Filling the news hole with their stories pushes out everything else and that's ultimately a win for the Trump Administration.

There has been a lot of talk this week about whether cable news should give live coverage to every Trump campaign speech and while that's a discussion worth having, the topic the Democrats should focus on is how to wrestle some of that attention away from the President and his tweet-driven news agenda.

I saw the tweet below a couple of days ago and the more I thought about the idea, the more brilliant it seemed:

Seeing as the White House won’t do daily press conferences anymore, and when they do it’s pure shite, why don’t the Democrats hold a daily press conference everyday and answer honestly to any questions asked?

— Andy baker (@Bakes_1) July 5, 2018

Having the Democrats host a daily Newser would simultaneously accomplish a couple of things. First, it would give the Democrats a chance to get their point of view in front of viewers on a daily basis. That regular schedule would also force the White House to return to their schedule of daily press briefings, or they take the risk of letting the Democrats set the daily news agenda.

While I think this is a great idea, there are a couple of very big caveats. First, the Democratic press briefing is not always going to go smoothly. Republicans will try and leak talking points out in front of the briefing, hoping to force reporters into asking tough questions about what ever semi-manufactured outrage the White House and its allies can dig up.

The second problem is more subtle and a lot more complicated to work out behind the scenes. The Democrats need to have a "topic of the day" set up ahead of the briefing. They need to focus on a daily topic, introduce it in the daily briefing and then have as many Democrats as possible use that reinforce it throughout the day, It will require message discipline and that is not one of the Democratic Party's strongest skills.

These briefings also need to stay away from familiar Democratic Party faces. No Nancy Pelosi, no one considering a run for President in 2020. At least not at this point. The focus of the briefing needs to be on the message, not on who is delivering it. But keeping the loudest voices in the party away from a national platform might be the biggest challenge of this idea.

Still, the daily briefings would break up the Trump Administration's hijacking of the news cycle. And it would hopefully give Democrats a daily platform to get across their message. Then one way or the other, it will be up to the voters.