A New York Post reporter confronted White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at Wednesday's press briefing for ignoring him as she took questions. “You haven’t called on me in two seasons, Karine,” the Post's Washington correspondent, Steve Nelson, called out per HuffPost. “I’m not calling on you today,” Jean-Pierre replied before turning to another reporter and beckoning to that person to "go ahead." Nelson, however, pressed further. “You should be ashamed of that,” he said as Jean-Pierre gestured to the other reporter and asked them to proceed. “That shows disrespect to a free and independent media. It’s blacklisting one of the nation’s largest and most widely read newspapers, Karine. That shows contempt for a free and independent press.”
After listening to Nelson's complaint with a smile, Jean-Pierre again gestured to the other reporter to speak. “I’m calling on somebody who I haven’t called on in a long time as well,” she told Nelson before taking the next question. The New York Post reporter later complained on X, formerly Twitter, that Jean-Pierre had not called on his since May. He also linked to an article he wrote about the press secretary denying the outlet's claim that the White House was restricting it and other publications from the president's indoor events. Nelson has written a number of articles critical of Democratic President Joe Biden for the conservative outlet, and Jean-Pierre has fielded her fair share of outbursts from other reporters since assuming the position in May 2022.
The @NYPost is our country's oldest daily newspaper. We have 4th-largest print circulation and only NY Times has more web traffic@PressSec last called on me in May, and on a colleague in July. The May exchange was also about press freedom issues: https://t.co/lNhoE8KSfD https://t.co/4FdRDZvlQ3
— Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) October 11, 2023
