In a meeting with news columnists earlier this week, the president “indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino,” the Times reported on Thursday.
A member of said cable television news media—one with a particularly large Twitter following—took notice:
Obama needs more cable news in his media diet? Revealing comment in a private meeting with newspaper columnists... pic.twitter.com/iUHz6Ey38g
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 18, 2015
Print and online journalists were blown away.
Remarkable https://t.co/qsAx6ULvYo
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) December 18, 2015
This is breathtaking https://t.co/1RkjRhbiGk
— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) December 18, 2015
Imagine Bush saying this. https://t.co/Aahlt92QMs
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) December 18, 2015
And then the sentence vanished. As of Friday morning, Mediaite noticed, it was gone from the article.
Conspiracy! Did the administration bully the Times into removing the line? Was it inaccurate? Does this matter?
We know this much: Obama hates cable news. He has never hidden his distaste for it, and Stelter should know this better than anyone. Last year, then-spokesman Jay Carney told Stelter on Reliable Sources that Obama “doesn’t watch cable news.”