The Daily Caller

Friday

Cockburn

Revealed: who gets to ask the White House questions?

An official guide to covering the White House created by the White House Correspondents’ Association confirms that Karine Jean-Pierre is intentionally selective about which media outlets she calls on at White House press briefings. The document, last updated in March 2023, notes that “the current press secretary has indicated she prefers not to call on people who are standing.” Of course, the seats in the briefing room are assigned by the WHCA and mostly reserved for left-leaning legacy media outlets — particularly the first few rows. Anyone else looking to get a question in is probably better off staying home... Tucking in to Tucker Fox News may have gone cold on him, but Tucker Carlson’s biographer Chadwick Moore sure knows how to put on a spread.

white house

Sunday

Cockburn

Lori Lightfoot ruins the CRT racket

Give some credit to Lori Lightfoot. She’s really good at wrecking things. When America’s most Innsmouth-ian politician took over Chicago in spring 2019 (presumably for lack of any other volunteers), it was hard to imagine screwing up the city worse than it already was. The city was already losing population. It already had the most murders of any US city and a top-30 violent crime rate overall. But Lightfoot rose to the challenge and then some. She inherited a city with 563 murders the year before she took office. In the 365 days between George Floyd’s death and the one-year anniversary of his demise, the city clocked more than 800, including 105 in a single month and 18 in a single day.

lori lightfoot

Thursday

Cockburn

Long live the Riot Squad

Spare a thought for the joyless malcontents over at the Intercept, a website that once proudly defended journalists and fought government interference in the everyday lives of American citizens. Now the Intercept gleefully smears reporters who have dared to cover the protests-cum-riots of the past few years. The site's senior writer Robert Mackey and video producer Travis Mannion bothered to make a 25-minute-long video scrutinizing the coverage of 'the Riot Squad', a group of young journalists and videographers who film the violent aftermath of Black Lives Matter and antifa protests — among other riots. Some of these young reporters are, gasp, conservatives. Cockburn couldn't be bothered to watch the whole mini-documentary (seriously, must everything be a video these days?

riot squad intercept

Sunday

Cockburn

How media outlets are coping with coronavirus

Welcome to the age of coronavirus, where lines snake around the aisles of supermarkets, millennials beg their boomer parents to stop going outside and the best sporting event on television is 10-pin bowling. America almost feels like a different country. Cockburn has seen a heartening amount of concern for loved ones over the last few days, especially among fellow journalists. To put minds at rest, therefore, he's been asking around to see what measures right-leaning outlets are taking to protect their employees from the virus. Across Rupert Murdoch's titles, the response has been robust. Workers at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post had the option to work from home last week, with a lot of editorial staff deciding to do so.

right

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

Amber Athey joins as The Spectator’s Washington editor

I’m delighted to announce that Amber Athey is The Spectator’s new Washington editor, joining us from the Daily Caller next month. We’re thrilled to have her on board. Amber is a highly talented and accomplished young journalist and a very gifted writer. She’s been an excellent White House Correspondent for the Caller, where she’s broken countless great stories and regularly questioned the president, Mike Pompeo, Steve Mnuchin and other officials. She has already written some excellent stuff for us and she’ll be invaluable in giving The Spectator a presence in DC. The Spectator’s US edition goes from strength to strength. We are already on to our fifth print edition of the monthly magazine and we feel we are getting better and better.

amber athey

Sunday

Amber Duke

The left’s real cause is muzzling its opponents

In February 2019, I appeared on the now-defunct NRATV to discuss anti-Semitic comments that Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib had made. Timothy Johnson, a so-called researcher for Media Matters for America who has spent nearly a decade lying in wait for conservative pundits, was watching. He didn’t like that I opposed the new de facto leaders of the Democratic party. In revenge, he posted several screenshots of inappropriate jokes about Jewish people I made on Twitter seven years earlier. The screenshots went viral. My mentions and DMs flooded with demands for an apology, calls for my firing and orders that I kill myself. Bookers reached out to tell me that upcoming television and radio appearances were canceled.

amber athey