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A national media critic posts a harsh commentary about interview resistance by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
James Warren's column is posted Monday at this journalism education site."You remember her, right?" writes James Warren in his latest column for the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center in Florida.
She's the wealthy charter school advocate from Michigan whose Senate confirmation hearing was a painful embarrassment, given her seeming ignorance of the Education Department she was taking over.
Or maybe you don't. She's not in the news much. She's like a 5th grader avoiding eye contact with a science teacher whose test she flunked.
His beef is that DeVos ducks interview and speaking requests from education reporters and their national association. "She has yet to sit down with reporters at department headquarters," he says, though she made an exception Sunday night for Megyn Kelly of NBC by "offering what appeared to be a brief and banal set of comments on charter schools."
Stock image from Deposit Photos
Warren, a former Chicago Tribune managing editor whose journalism career spans four decades, quotes Greg Toppo of USA Today, president of the Education Writers Association, on the Cabinet member's general lack of availability:
"You can count her on-the-record interviews on one hand."
DeVos declined to address the association's annual meeting in Washington two months ago, Toppo tells Poynter's chief media writer, who adds:
Instead, she surfaced at a session of National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence.
A long way from home in Holland, Michigan, maybe she needed her carburetor checked and an oil change. It was simpler than talking to journalists.
