Reporter Unsure of Whether White House Will Kill Him: 'I Don't Know What They Will Do Next'
“I don’t know if I’m safe, I don’t know if they’ll kill me, I don’t know what they will do next.”
That statement wasn’t made by a journalist in North Korea or Syria; it was made by Today News Africa chief White House correspondent Simon Ateba to WMAL host and Daily Caller editorial director Vince Coglianese after the White House not only refused to let him ask his question but, in effect, erased him from the recording of the briefing on Tuesday.
During Monday’s White House press briefing, Ateba interrupted White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in an attempt to have his question answered, which resulted in Jean-Pierre threatening to conclude the event.
When the White House recording was uploaded to YouTube, the interactions involving Ateba had been edited out, according to Real Clear Politics.
The edited version:
The White House has edited out every interaction between KJP and @simonateba from their YouTube livestream. pic.twitter.com/QxAgEWFItc
— Kevin McMahon (@Kevin__McMahon) June 26, 2023
The unedited version:
Simon Ateba is back at it again in the press briefing. pic.twitter.com/4BXTT4gfbw
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 26, 2023
In the unedited version of the White House briefing video, Ateba can be heard accusing the White House of discriminating against him.
Ateba said, “So are you going to take questions from me?… because you’ve been discriminating against me for the past nine months.”
The interaction continued, ending with Jean-Pierre calling Ateba “incredibly rude” for the interruption. She then stated if Ateba persisted in interrupting, the press briefing would be brought to an abrupt end.
“I’ve been in this briefing room. I’ve been trying to ask you one question when I am on,” Ateba said. “You’re not giving freedom of the press.”
According to Real Clear Politics, Ateba hasn’t been allowed to ask a question in nine months.
After Fox News reached out to The White House about the edited video, the White House restored the missing portion of the video and informed them that it was a result of an error in the encoder responsible for transmitting the live stream to YouTube, according to a report by the outlet.
How convenient.
Ateba and probably the rest of the straight-thinking population of this country have serious doubts about it being a “technical error.”
Fox News reported that Ateba said he has been consistently marginalized and iced out of White House events, his emails go unanswered, and he has been ignored in press briefings for months.
According to Ateba, if the White House considers a reporter problematic, they resort to blacklisting tactics. They ignore their questions and emails and prevent them from participating in background briefings.
Ateba said he found it offensive that the Biden administration would claim to deepen ties with Africa by sending officials there while simultaneously sidelining an African reporter in the Washington briefing room.
“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,” he told Fox News.
“They’re trying to keep me out of the briefing room. I don’t know how far they will go to silence me,” Ateba told The Daily Caller.
“Maybe they’ll hack my phone, maybe they’ll hack my laptop. Maybe they’ve done things I’m not really aware of. But for them to do that, or to even appear to do that, to try to edit me and cancel me and silence me, it’s maybe the beginning of something really ugly, and I just want people to keep praying for me. Keep praying for me. I don’t know what will happen to me tomorrow.”
The @WhiteHouse fraud continues. They have two versions of the briefing on YouTube. The first one where they edited me out during my exchange with @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre and the second one where they restored it. Both versions are up. Here they are.
1-… pic.twitter.com/m3qWb1jT4y
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) June 28, 2023
On what some are calling the so-called chaos at the White House today, I was just trying to ask a question. It’s a pity what’s going on. How can @PressSec Karine Jean-Pierre preach about the freedom of the press when she is violating the First Amendment many died to protect? May… pic.twitter.com/wOBsOv6GwI
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) June 26, 2023
Ateba shouldn’t be so surprised. Everyone knows black voices are only considered important when they agree with the Democrats.
According to the 2023 World Press Freedom Index report released in May, only 3 out of 10 countries have a “satisfactory environment” for journalists.
The report partially blamed “fake content,” AI, and Twitter for disseminating “manipulative content on a huge scale.”
The report did not, however, happen to mention one of the biggest purveyors of censored and manipulated information — The United States White House.
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