White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied on Thursday a television news reporter’s day-old claim that reporters often ‘provide the questions to him in advance,’ before his daily briefings, and that he sometimes provides answers on paper before taking the podium.
WIthin hours, the Phoenix reporter at the center of a quick-drying controversy admitted she got the whole thing wrong.
Phoenix news anchor Catherine Anaya reported Wednesday night on KPHO-TV5 that in an ‘off the record’ meeting, Carney had told a handful of local TV reporters that White House correspondents often tell him before daily briefings what they’ll be asking.
‘If only this were true,’ Carney told MailOnline Thursday morning.
By mid-afternoon Anaya, fresh of a Washington-to-Phoenix flight, walked parts of her story back in an email to MailOnline. But she insisted that she herself was asked to submit a question in advance for Carney on Wednesday afternoon.
KPHO-TV anchor Catherine Anaya went to Washington to participate in a carefully managed television journalism cattle-call at the White House, and reported that Press Secretary Jay Carney’s daily briefings are often just for show
‘As a local journalist I had no issue providing my proposed question in advance,’ she told MailOnline, ‘because I wanted to make sure it was an appropriate q[uestion] for a national briefing and I wanted to make sure it was appropriate for Mr. Carney.’
‘[B]ut in discussing it with a staff member the night before, we decided I would save it for the president. I was attempting to not waste national time on a local question, but in my attempt at explaining that I unintentionally made it sound like that experience applied to everyone.’
‘That is my mistake,’ Anaya added, ‘and I own up to it.’
Meanwhile, KPHO-TV issued a separate statement attributed to Anaya, but the CBS affiliate station quickly deleted it from its website.
Assignment Editor Scott Davis told MailOnline that it ‘apparently … was not the correct statement.’
Anaya’s on-air commentary remains on the website, however.
‘We started here shortly after 8 o’clock with a coffee with Press Secretary Jay Carney inside his office in the West Wing,’ she said on the air, before making a stunning breach of journalistic protocol by reporting on an ‘off the record’ meeting and airing a photo of it.
Published and yanked: The statement KPHO deleted
KPHO-TV issued this extended quote Thursday afternoon from Catherine Anaya, and then quickly withdrew it, saying in an email that ‘apparently that was not the correct statement’:
‘It seems much had been inferred about my observations following my White House visit yesterday.
‘First, I did not take notes during our coffee with Jay Carney because it was off the record. But when I referenced the meeting in my live reports I did say that it was a great opportunity to talk about the challenges of his day and how he has to be so well-versed on many topics each day.
‘In my live report I also wanted to share my impression of my experience in getting a question answered during the briefing. I was indeed asked to provide my question in advance. Because my question was largely of local interest, I chose to save it for my interview with the President instead.
‘My mistake was to lump that experience with my coffee meeting reference, inadvertently giving Mr. Carney credit for that when in fact it did not come from him. I regret giving anyone the impression that it was from conversation I had with Mr. Carney.
I do not attend those briefings regularly and cannot speak directly to the process for non-visiting journalists.
None of my observations stemmed from my off-the-record meeting with Jay Carney.’
‘And this was off-the-record,’ she reported, ‘so we were able to ask him all about some of the preparation that he does on a regular basis for talking to the press in his daily press briefings. He showed us a very long list of items that he has to be well-versed on every single day.’
‘And then he also mentioned that a lot of times,’ Anaya added, ‘unless it’s something breaking, the questions that the reporters actually ask – or the correspondents – they are provided to him in advance.’
‘So then he knows what he’s going to be answering and sometimes those correspondents and reporters also have those answers printed in front of them, because of course it helps when they’re producing their reports for later on.’
Anaya responded to a request for comment hours later. Davis initially told MailOnline that she was on a plane and unavailable.
But the White House was quick to dismiss her account of what Carney said. Carney himself tweeted a second denial after this report was first published.
Anaya’s recounting of her day at the White House aired Wednesday in at least two separate on-air reports. One was uploaded to a hastily created YouTube account and then reported by The Weekly Standard.
It’s unknown who published that video online.
.@RalstonReports Briefings would be a lot easier if this were true! Rest assured, it is not.
— Jay Carney (EOP) (@PressSec) March 20, 2014
Final story: Anaya’s full statement, rewritten
Hours after deleting the anchor’s hastily issued statement KPHO-TV released a second one:
‘Last night during my live reports from the White House I attempted to describe the highlights of the day. I was speaking off the cuff and unscripted and in the process I made two major mistakes: I reported an off the record conversation and what I reported was not accurate.
‘I took a conversation about the preparation for a press briefing and muddied it with my own experience of wanting to provide a question for the press briefing. I incorrectly applied the process to everyone. That was wrong and it was bad reporting. But it was not intentional and I would never purposely report inaccurate information.
‘The White House never asked for my questions in advance and never instructed me what to ask. I chose to provide one of my questions in advance of the press briefing because I wanted to make sure it would have broad appeal. I did not attribute or report factually last night and for that I deeply apologize.
‘I pride myself on truth and objectivity. I sincerely regret any harm I’ve caused and I hope that you will continue to place your trust in the hardworking journalists who make up CBS 5 News.’
Anaya published this photo of what she said was an ‘off the record’ meeting Wednesday morning with Carney, during which — she claims — he said he often receives daily briefing questions in advance
Obama conducted his interviews Wednesday with several local news anchors standing up, Anaya said, so the brief Q&A sessions could be kept to a 4-minute limitA longer broadcast segment, in which Anaya makes the same claim about Carney’s advance knowledge of daily briefing questions, is the one on KPHO’s website.
‘They provide the questions to him in advance,’ she said in that report. ‘And so he is already preparing for the answer. And sometimes – in some cases, I should say – he actually prepares that answer for them, so that they can have that to work on their reports later on.’
Anaya also told viewers that she was limited to four minutes for her brief encounter with the president, but ‘stretched it to six.’ At the beginning of KPHO’s video, she’s seen glancing off-camera to see if her time has started.
The interview was conducted with both parties standing up in the White House Diplomatic Room.
‘The reason why we’re standing, I was told by one of his staffers, is because he likes to get comfortable when he’s sitting, and he tends to get very chatty,’ she said.
‘And so this was another way to keep him – and us – at the four minutes that they were suggesting that we not go over.’
‘Yeah,’ responded anchor Adam Longo, ‘and it sounds like the pressure is on when some guy is standing behind him with a countdown clock. That’s a little ridiculous.’
