War is over. Now come the Purple Hearts for the White House press corps.
The four year battle with Donald Trump and his lying, contentious press secretaries has earned a few of the journalists who had to endure that torture some nice rewards.
At CNN, the great Jim Acosta is leaving the press corps to be a weekend anchor and front and center correspondent. He deserves. Acosta stood his ground, even as he was “accosted” so to speak by the Trump White House. At one point he had to fight to get his credentials returned after they were pulled. He did a great job.
Fox News is bringing their most moderate, and literate, reporter, John Roberts, into the studio. He’ll anchor a new show at 1pm daily. Roberts hung in there day after day in a tough spot. He represented a crazy right wing network, but he managed to walk a fine line and voice his skepticism about what the hell was going on in that press room. It couldn’t have been easy.
NBC is promoting Peter Alexander and Kristen Welker to the White House. They worked hard also during the Trump four year debacle and will now have a presumably easier time with Biden and Harris. Leaving the NBC White House gig is Hallie Jackson, who also did a great job as Senior White House correspondent. She’s promoted to senior Washington correspondent, and anchors at MSNBC. I hope we see a lot of her.
Andrea Mitchell– I’m sorry, but how long has she been at NBC? Since General Sarnoff started the place? And she looks like she’s 39. Anyway, Alexander and Welker are under her now, she’s the chief White House Correspondent. I’m just joking, of course. Andrea Mitchell is amazing.
No word yet on Paula Reid at CBS or Jon Karl at ABC, both of whom did outstanding work as they tried to peel back the rotten onion of Spicer, Huckabee, McEnemy, etc. And Yamiche Alcindor should get the Medal of Freedom, frankly. Seeing her in that room, watching her jump in without fear, made the last year, especially, possible to tolerate. In the old days, if I met her, I’d hug her. Now I’d give her a very friendly elbow!
We can only hope there will be a White House correspondents dinner live in 2022. What a celebration! Without these indefatigable journalists, we would have been sunk. God bless ’em for maintaining their integrity and keeping their cool!
