Reporter Suggests Press Sec Gets Questions From Press In Advance – Carney, WH Reporters Deny

In a televised report about her visit to the White House, yesterday, a CBS reporter from Arizona insinuated that White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, receives questions from the press in advance of his daily press briefing. She also noted in her report that the reporters often receive the answers in advance of the briefing, too.

Via Daniel Halper of the Weekly Standard:

“It was a very busy day. We started here shortly after 8 o’clock with a coffee with press secretary Jay Carney inside his office in the West Wing,” says the reporter.

“And this was the off-the-record so we were able to ask him all about some of the preparation that he does on a regular basis for talking to the press in his daily press briefings. He showed us a very long list of items that he has to be well versed on every single day.

“And then he also mentioned that a lot of times, unless it’s something breaking, the questions that the reporters actually ask — the correspondents — they are provided to him in advance. So then he knows what he’s going to be answering and sometimes those correspondents and reporters also have those answers printed in front of them, because of course it helps when they’re producing their reports for later on. So that was very interesting.”

Video here.

Carney denied the story, telling a reporter on Twitter, “briefings would be a lot easier if this were true! Rest assured, it is not.”

Reporters Jonathan Karl (ABC) and Ed Henry (Fox) also denied the claim.  Henry on Twitter said that the story is “dead wrong.” 

When I asked Karl if the story was true, his response, was “uh, no.” He suggested that the CBS reporter was referring to the questions Carney’s staff supplies him in anticipation for what will be asked.