David FrumVerified account

2. EG: For message, “Our inaugural crowd was bigger than Obama’s” on-camera briefing essential. Tell it to a reporter, she’ll laugh at you

3. For the first weeks of Trump admin, the method worked. Sean Spicer put outrageous lie after outrageous lie into circulation, direct to TV

4. If the Trump White House now ceases on-camera briefings, it’s not to “punish the press.” It’s because the method has ceased to work.

5. The lies are being discredited & disbelieved - and the discrediting process is sinking Trump’s poll numbers even among former supporters

6. If the briefings are ended, it’s because the White House feels it’s losing the messaging war to the forces of truth.

7. It’s shifting from offense to defense, like an exhausted boxer who quits throwing punches and instead just feebly tries to block

8. My guess is that the end, if it comes, won’t last. Trump will hate surrendering then TV war even more than he hates losing it.

9. He’ll want *somebody* to go on air and repeat exactly what he told them. (Somebody other than Hannity, that is.)

10. Whether on-air briefings are suspended, whether they return, make no mistake - neither decision is for the public good. Both are cynical

11. So to the press corps: don’t lament if Trump ends briefing. They weren’t a favor to you or a service to the public. They were a tactic

12. … a tactic in a campaign of deception. If the campaign is shifting terrain now - it’s because its authors are getting jittery.

13. Which is good news, not bad. So stay strong (in the literal sense, not the “if nobody squeals, nobody goes to prison” sense). END.

Similar to the reasons dictators establish state-TV stations, buy their own media empire, and jail/kill reporters.