Phoenix news anchor Catherine Anaya said on Thursday that she didn't have things quite right earlier this week when she said White House press secretary Jay Carney gets questions in advance from reporters.
Anaya gave plenty of fodder to conservatives and media critics alike when she recounted her time with Carney during an "off-the-record" meeting in Washington this week.
"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, unless it's something breaking, the questions that the reporters actually ask -- the correspondents -- they are provided to him in advance," she said.
"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. So that was very interesting."
Carney flatly denied the suggestion, and now Anaya is also clarifying her remarks. While she provided her question in advance of her interview with President Obama, Anaya said in a statement (posted below) released Thursday that she shouldn't have conflated her experience with members of the media who regularly attend the White House press briefings.
Here is Anaya's statement that was released on her station's website but was then pulled without explanation:
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.
Here is Anaya's original report suggesting that Jay Carney gets a majority of press briefing questions ahead of time:
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