Boris Johnson to bring in daily White House-style TV press briefings from October

Downing Street is planning on moving closer to a White House-styled press briefing format
AP/ Reuters
Ellena Cruse3 July 2020

Boris Johnson will hold daily White House-style TV press briefings in a bid to "introduce a culture of transparency and openness”, it has been reported.

According to The Times, the Prime Minister will introduce a journalists' question and answer session at Downing Street, hosted by an experienced broadcaster.

The briefings are set to go ahead in October and Number 10 have started the recruitment process for producers and a presenter, the paper said.

The move was announced after the Government scrapped the daily briefings last week but pledged to hold them to “coincide with significant announcements”.

Mr Johnson later confirmed the plans and told LBC: “People have liked a more direct, detailed information from the Government about what is going on – and I think that they’ve actually particularly liked our brilliant scientific and medical advisers, possibly more than the politicians to be frank.

“We do think that people want direct engagement and want stuff from us, and so we’re going to have a go at that.”

The daily briefings, often televised with medical experts were scrapped last week
via REUTERS

Mr Johnson said he would “pop up from time to time”, although an experienced broadcaster would take the reigns.

Millions of people previously tuned in for the coronavirus updates which were aired on news channels and streamed online.

In a step closer to how Donald Trump's administration operates in the US, a room at Number 9 Downing Street is set to be transformed into a media suite for the project.

It comes as Downing Street is preparing to overhaul Government communications which will be led from the Cabinet Office instead of individual departments.

The number of people working in communications is also set to be reduced from 4,000. In the plans media teams will be limited to a maximum of 30 workers, The Times said.

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