White House reporters assigned to President Joe Biden’s (D) trips to Japan and Australia could lose money because he chose to cancel the final leg of the trip, according to a report.
News agencies apparently paid to charter a plane for journalists to fly from Hiroshima to Sydney, The Washington Post reported Friday.
Biden ended his trip ahead of schedule to return to the United States to continue debt ceiling negotiations.
“Biden leaves for Hiroshima on Wednesday to attend the G-7 summit. However, he would return to the United States on Sunday, skipping planned visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia,” noted a Breitbart News article published on Tuesday.
THE Job The report says the change in plans has left media groups with a significant bill. There is now speculation that some managers may refrain from sending correspondents on such presidential trips in the future.
The output continued:
The now-cancelled charter flight, organized by the White House travel office, cost $760,000, or about $14,000 for each of the 55 journalists who had booked seats on it. Reporters will immediately lose their deposits, about $7,700 each, and may be liable for the rest, according to a memo sent to reporters Wednesday by Tamara Keith, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
But a long list of other costs — hotel reservations, ground transportation, a shared media drop-off center, among others — may also be unrecoverable. And journalists will lose some or all of the cost of their return flights from Sydney to Washington, as they scramble for last-minute flights from Hiroshima to Washington.
“Bottom line: the bill for not going to Australia could cost upwards of $25,000 per person before any refunds kick in, according to multiple people involved in efforts to get the money back,” the outlet said.
The trip would be rescheduled, according to 7 News Australia:
Meanwhile, canceled trips to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia have unsettled those who said Biden was wasting his credibility in the region, according to Breitbart News.
PNG leaders declared a public holiday on Monday to mark the presidential visit “which was seen as a major step towards curbing China’s growing influence in the region”, Breitbart noted.
However, Biden’s decision to forgo the trip only reinforced “China’s propaganda about a dying United States that can no longer wield effective diplomatic or economic influence,” according to the report.
Breitbart