MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WHITE HOUSE STAFF: “White House press briefings during the Trump administration have gone from must-see TV to practically cancelled after just two seasons. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, has not taken questions from the podium since Dec. 18, and she appeared just once in September, November and December. On Tuesday [1-22-19], President Trump said on Twitter that he told Ms. Sanders ‘not to bother’ with briefings anymore because ‘the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately.’ Hogan Gidley, a White House spokesman, said in an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, shortly before Mr. Trump’s tweet, that the briefings have not officially stopped, but that Ms. Sanders did not need to be at the podium every day because Mr. Trump regularly answers questions from reporters, for example, on his way to Marine One.”
–Karen Yourish and Jasmine C. Lee, “The Demise of the White House Press Briefing Under Trump,” The New York Times online, January 22, 2019