A Simple and Easy Suggestion for Angry White House Reporters

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a briefing for the White House where no cameras or audio was allowed. It was the latest in a series of increasingly opaque pantomimes from Spicer (or, lately, his deputy-slash-rumored usurper Sarah Huckabee Sanders).

Monday’s briefing, however, was a bridge too far for CNN’s Jim Acosta, who started the afternoon tweeting about his socks:

Acosta ended it by railing against Spicer, and the Trump administration’s press briefings in general, as “just kind of useless,” and saying that what the White House was doing “would not be tolerated” in other circumstances.

Acosta’s frustration is certainly valid. Being made to sit in a room, have a bumbling stooge lie to your face, and not be allowed to broadcast any of it to the public is obviously insulting and wrong.

But instead of complaining, here’s another very easy proposal: Don’t go in the first place! There is no rule that you have to go to the White House press briefing. It’s not in the Constitution. You won’t be killed if you skip it. So skip it!

The Trump White House is one that thrives on two things above all else: attention and conflict. Nowhere is that more evident than in the briefing room, where journalists from all over the world hang on the administration’s every word, while they are vilified by the very mouthpieces they are tasked with hearing from.

So just don’t go! If it’s all as pointless as Acosta says it is, don’t go. You feel offended to your core? Why are you bothering, then? Spicer and company are content to offer bullshit in the place of actual answers to serious questions, so why turn up to smell it?

Ignoring the administration altogether—tempting as that may be—isn’t an option for a White House journalist. But that doesn’t mean they should be resigned to simply taking whatever scraps are handed to them by these people. So stand up to this nonsense and boycott the briefing until it changes.