Archives for February 2021

After four years with an administration and president that regularly dismissed the norms of their predecessors, perhaps the biggest sign of normalcy coming back to the White House has been the return of regular press briefings, both from the White House and other departments.

Since President Biden’s Inauguration on January 20th, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has managed to hold a press briefing every day of the business week, marking a sharp contrast to the previous Trump administration, which astonishingly managed to allow 400 days to pass between two of their White House press briefings. Psaki has also managed to bring back a longstanding tradition of waiting for the nod of the attending AP reporter before ending the briefing.

When asked about the courtesy by The Washington Post, Psaki replied, “We have every intention of continuing to look for ways to modernize and be far less traditional, but this tradition sets the right tone of a wire service that is carried in media outlets across the country kicking off the briefing and also signaling when it is time to end.”

Meanwhile, following up on Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s promise to resume normal media relations, the State Department’s Press Secretary Ned Price – the first gay man to hold the position – has also began delivering daily press briefings this Tuesday, reports ABC News. State Department briefings were once a regular thing until fear of contradicting former President Trump’s capricious leadership style left the practice seemingly impossible.

Likewise, Chief Pentagon Press Spokesman, retired Rear Adm. John Kirby, has gone the extra mile, promising an aggressive briefing schedule, “most likely [on] Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” but also including “an on-the-record but off-camera gaggle” for Tuesdays and Thursdays, according to The Washington Examiner. Kirby also said that he would put an end to strict time limits for those press briefings as well, allowing for more engagement with Pentagon reporters.

“I don’t want to be up there briefing without a chance for everybody to get a shot,” Kirby said. “In the past, there has been a tendency to cut the briefings off after a certain amount of minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it is. But I’m not interested in having a time limit on it.”

The reopening of the press rooms has received applause and excitement from a number of officials from former presidential press offices. In a CNN op-ed, former Clinton Press Secretary Joe Lockhart wrote, “The Biden administration is sending a strong symbol that transparency and accountability, two things lacking in the previous administration, will be central to how the government will work moving forward.”

Lockhart went on to applaud the selection of the press secretaries leading the charge, saying “Jen Psaki at the White House, John Kirby at the Pentagon and Ned Price at State are using decades of experience and credibility built up by being straight with reporters even when the news is not good.” He also added, “Each of President Biden’s picks sends a strong message about how important he sees accountability and transparency in government.”

Its going to be an exciting, active relationship between the Washington press Corps and the Biden administration.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the nation’s food and health watchdog, has elected Robin Caiola as its new Chair of the Board. 

Caiola, a New York-based development consultant and professional photographer, previously served as CSPI’s director of development and as executive director at 20/20 Vision, the nonprofit grassroots environmental and peace organization.

Caiola will replace former FDA commissioner Dr. David Kessler, who was recently tapped by President Joe Biden to serve as the Chief Science Officer at the White House, where he will lead the nation in the development, manufacture, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. 

CSPI’s decades-long efforts to lobby governments and corporations for a healthier food environment ushered in the widespread use of packaged food labels and menu labeling in chain restaurants, as well as a new mandatory line for “added sugars” as of 2021 on the Nutrition Facts label.

Along with CSPI’s president, Dr. Peter Lurie, Cailoa said she is “working to promote equitable access to safe and nutritious food, strengthen nutrition standards for school foods and kids meals, and continue to reduce consumption of sugary beverages.”

Former Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia will serve as CSPI’s Vice Chair.

For more information on CSPI, visit cspinet.org. 

 

After a year of record high newsroom layoffs, the U.S. Small Business Administration has expanded eligibility criteria for PPP loans to include smaller news organizations for 2021.

Following the passage of the 2020 CARES Act, small publishers were frustrated that several venture-backed news organizations – including Axios and Bustle Digital Group – received PPP loans in the millions, despite having access to other funding sources, Digiday reported in April. Axios later returned their PPP loan, citing politicization around the loans and access to other sources of funding.

Still, newsrooms were left frustrated by the fact that nearly two thirds of U.S. newspapers had been excluded from the PPP loan program despite the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on news media. According to a new study from the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, newsroom layoffs grew nearly 200% in 2020 and was hit with 16,160 job cuts – up 13% from the industry’s previous record set in 2008, reports The Wrap.

As we have reported here before, the past year has been especially difficult for local news outlets whose revenue depends heavily on advertising dollars from local businesses within their communities. Many of these businesses were unwilling to spend their money on advertising during the pandemic, leaving many local news organizations in dire straits.

Fortunately, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 (CRRSAA), which was signed into law on December 27, 2020, has expanded eligibility requirements to allow more newspapers and TV stations to qualify for PPP loans. Legal analysts at JD Supra published details on changes to the eligibility requirements here.

The action was immediately celebrated by the News Media Alliance, a trade association representing nearly 2000 newspapers in the United States and Canada. In a press release following the passage of the CRRSAA, News Media Alliance CEO David Chavern stated, “These SBA loans will allow news publishers to continue to bring critical news and information to their local communities, particularly at this time of historic challenges.”

The press release went on to say that the association was “extremely grateful to all of the congressional champions, in both the House and the Senate, for their enduring support of high-quality local journalism, and for their leadership in gathering bipartisan support for an SBA affiliation waiver for news publishers.”