Not everyone was thrilled when President Biden’s staffers posted a sign reading “Believe” at the Oval Office entrance Monday — a tribute to the “Ted Lasso” cast, who ended up sitting in on a particularly contentious White House press briefing.
“The sign is a sham … a joke,” disgruntled Today News Africa correspondent Simeon Ateba told The Post. “It’s virtue signaling from people who don’t really believe.”
Ateba aired his feelings at the briefing when he yelled at White House press secretary Karina Jean-Pierre: “You’ve been discriminating against me, you’ve been discriminating against some people in the briefing room!”
Jason Sudeikis, Brett Goldstein and other “Lasso” actors looked bemused as Jean-Pierre told them, “Welcome to the press briefing room.”
It’s not the first such outburst from Ateba, who also hollered during former Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s final briefing in May 2022, “Why don’t you take questions from across the room?”
Ateba, who does not have an assigned seat in the press room and is sometimes relegated to standing-room-only in the back, charged that being ignored in favor of big outlets such as the TV networks illustrates “the continuation of the colonial mentality to look down on people from Africa.”
The Post has reached out to the White House for comment.
He has said that Jean-Pierre has not called on him in seven months, and Psaki didn’t take his questions for 15 months.
“Psaki treated me very badly after I pointed out lies over the Omicron variant, which prompted Biden to ban eight African nations in 2021,” Ateba told The Post. “Six of them had zero cases of the variants.”
He added that he is not alone in allegedly being snubbed: “They don’t take questions from any African journalists.”
A native of Cameroon, West Africa, Ateba, 43, told The Post that he has “written thousands of articles” and began his journalism career with “more than a decade working in Nigeria and West Africa.”
He writes for Today News Africa, a publication based in DC, covering “US-Africa News, Diplomacy And Politics” and with a website that borrows liberally from the look of The Post.
Ateba is the publisher and has been the WH correspondent since 2018.
Since then, according to a correspondent who routinely attends the briefings, Ateba has been to hundreds of press briefings but only been called on only a few times.
Access to President Biden is even more elusive. “In more than two years, I attended only one event with the President,” said Ateba. “[The White House] will not credential me.”
Getting noticed at a press briefing is a matter of proximity, said the correspondent source: “The closer you sit to the press secretary, the more likely you are to get called on for a question
In the first row of seven rows, there are seats reserved for ABC News, NBC News and Fox News Radio, among others.
In the last two rows are outlets such News Max, Aljazeera and Washington Examiner, which tend to get less face time.
Behind them and along the sides stand reporters from publications such as the Independent, Salon and India Globe.
“[Those in the back} almost are never getting called on,” said the correspondent source. “Being on the side of is about equal to being in the fourth row — which, also, means you almost never get called on.”
But Ateba, despite not having an assigned seat, usually manages to avoid SRO status.
“Usually, there are empty seats [in the last rows] because reporters in the back know that they will not get called on,” said the correspondent source. “Simon is the most adept seat poacher. But imagine how you feel if you are assigned to the seventh row and you see Simon sitting in the fifth.
“It’s dismal back there. You just sit there and know you will never get called on to ask a question. You start to wonder why you are even attending. People often sit there and complain among themselves.”
“You don’t want to be known as the journalist who goes to the White House and yells questions,” Ateba admitted. “But you need to yell something to get recognized. I’m just doing my job.”
Nevertheless, the loud-mouthing does not leave fellow reporters feeling supportive of Ateba.
Following his most recent outburst, some verbally demanded “decorum.”
“If you have grievances, you should bring them to her later … The press corps is tired of dealing with this,” Jeff Mason, a Reuters correspondent, told Ateba.
Ateba, who said he has never seen “Ted Lasso,” told The Post the questions he wanted Jean-Pierre to address.
“First, I wanted to know about progress with the Ethiopian Tygre crisis,” Ateba said. “My second question was about the cease fire in Ukraine. Last week John Curry said that President Biden was opposed to the cease fire because it would benefit Russia. I wanted to know when would be a good time for a cease fire if not now.”
When things finally simmered down enough for Sudeikis to get a word in edgewise, he pointed out that we all know someone “that’s felt isolated, that’s felt anxious, that has felt alone.”
Ateba remains unmoved. “[The White House] brings in actors to lecture on how to be good to one another and to stand up for one another,” he said. “But they do not do it in the briefing room.”
