A reporter known for his clashes with the Biden White House has accused it of purposefully deleting a heated exchange with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre from Monday’s official live stream.
“I’m Black, I’m an immigrant and I’m the little guy… I’m just trying to do my job,” the White House correspondent for Today News Africa, Simon Ateba, told Fox News Digital.
The missing portion, which was later restored after Fox News reached out for comment, featured Ateba accusing the White House of discriminating against him.
Jean-Pierre said, “the White House, under this administration, we’re committed to the freedom of the press. I want to be very clear about that.”
Karine Jean-Pierre Simon Ateba (Fox News Digital)
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Ateba followed up, asking, “So are you going to take questions from me?… because you’ve been discriminating against me for the past nine months.”
“You’re incredibly rude. You’re being incredibly rude,” Jean-Pierre responded. She proceeded to threaten to end the press briefing if Ateba wouldn’t fall in line and stop interrupting. This occurred before any reporters had asked their questions.
“If this continues, we’re going to end the press briefing,” she said.
“I’ve been in this briefing room. I’ve been trying to ask you one question when I am on,” Ateba responded to Jean-Pierre. “You’re not giving freedom of the press.”
After Fox News Digital reached out for comment about the missing exchange, the portion of the missing video was then restored to the stream. The White House told Fox News that the portion missing was caused by an error with the encoder that feeds the live stream to YouTube.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was bombarded with questions about the growing Hunter Biden scandal at Friday’s press briefing. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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Ateba said he was skeptical that it was a technical error and accused the White House of removing it on purpose. He told Fox News that he has been consistently marginalized, saying he has been iced out of White House events, his emails go unanswered, and he has been ignored in press briefings for months.
If the White House deems a reporter problematic, “They blacklist you. They don’t respond to your question, they don’t respond to your email. And they don’t allow you to ask questions in the background,” he said.
Ateba maintains it is his job not to be friends with the White House, but to make “those who are comfortable uncomfortable.”
“But what happens is if you do that, if you make the comfortable uncomfortable what happens to you is they try and sideline you. And the other people will be afraid to even come near you because [they] don’t want to be seen close to you, because then they won’t get questions at the next press briefing, then they won’t be invited to social events,” he said.
Ateba then said it was offensive for the Biden administration to claim it was deepening ties to Africa by sending officials there while sidelining an African reporter in the Washington briefing room.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks at a press briefing at the White House. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
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“I’ve done my best,” he said. “And when you think about it, in the next 50 years, five years, 10 years, 15 years, when people look back and see that African journalist who was there in the briefing room, trying to the job, is just trying to ask the question, and trying to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Africa.”
“And you pass on him, you banned him, you sidelined him, you oppressed him, you discriminated against him only to go to Africa and claim that you want to strengthen ties. It’s actually actually offensive. It’s shocking.”
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