In the wake of last week’s contentious exchange between ABC’s Jake Tapper and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, The Daily Beast’s Rachel Sklar talks to Tapper about his role covering the White House.
“There’s a big lesson for all of us — not just reporters, but the nation — in the need for a vigilant press that questions the decisions our leaders make…I certainly don’t think that it’s the job of any journalist to make the presidency work,” he says.
Sklar quotes a “colleague on the D.C. political circuit” who says, “I think it’s safe to say that he’s calculated, meaning that if he’s being tough, it’s likely because he sat down one day to say, ‘I want to be this administration’s David Gregory.'”
And Major Garrett’s favorite active journalist was at it again last night — Columbia Journalism Review’s Liz Cox Barrett gave the best question of last night’s news conference to Tapper.
• Earlier: mediabistro.com’s “So What Do You Do?” Q&A with Tapper.