Sentinel Editor Rebuts White House's Fake News Claims

ROCKVILLE, MD — A Montgomery County journalist who serves as both executive editor of a local newspaper and as a national correspondent for Playboy magazine caused a lot of buzz at a White House press conference Tuesday. Brian Karem, of the Montgomery County Sentinel, rose to the media's defense when deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused journalists of fake news and misconduct.

The incident occurred when Charlie Spiering of Brietbart asked Huckabee Sanders about the recent controversy at CNN. Asked about President Trump's recent tweets condemning CNN, which retracted a story about Trump over the weekend, Huckabee Sanders decried the use of anonymous sources and said that sometimes reporters use no sources at all.

While major media outlets do often use anonymous sources — including unnamed White House officials — no major outlet relies on unsourced reporting.

Huckabee Sanders continued, saying she thinks the media focuses too much on the investigation into possible Russian meddling in the presidential election, and not enough on the White House's accomplishments.

See Related: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Sparks Heated Response Over 'Fake News' Claims (Watch)

"Do you actually expect us not to report on a foreign country trying to influence our election?" asked Spiering. Huckabee Sanders just said that she thought reporters should focus as much on that story.

After she had extensively criticized the media and its treatment of the White House, Karem responded by saying that she was feeding into a false and unfair narrative about the press:

"Anyone of us, if we don't get it, the audience has the opportunity to turn the channel or not read us," Karem said. "But you've been elected to serve four years at least. There's no option other than that. We're here to ask you questions; you're here to give the answers. And what you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at it and say: 'See, once again, the president is right, and everyone else out here is fake media.'"

The tensions expressed show the degrading relationship between the White House and the press. This month, the White House has dramatically cut back on the number of televised briefings it permits. This will be only the third on-camera briefing in three weeks.

Huckabee Sanders delivered the briefing in place of her boss, Sean Spicer, a change from the initial plans. The briefing took place the day after the White House released a statement warning that Syria may use chemical weapons again and threatening that the United States would retaliate. Multiple outlets reported that defense officials were surprised by the statement, but the White House said Tuesday that all relevant departments were notified of the decision.

Karem gained much exposure from his fiery exchange with Huckabee Sanders. Before the press conference, he had 450 Twitter followers. This number skyrocketed to 69.7K followers by Wednesday afternoon.

Karem took to Twitter to speak more on the situation:

He also wrote a Playboy column on the press conference, saying:

"Six months of being bullied by this administration, being told we are the enemy of the people and how the administration supports the First Amendment – just not the people who practice it – and I’d had enough. So I confronted Sanders about her statements," Karem wrote.

Visit the Montgomery County Sentinel here.

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