It is a war. If you're wondering about the shutdown of visual/audio recording of press briefings, wonder no more, just watch any US late night comedy show. A staple for the last 6 months has been the mocking of cherry picked segments of said press briefings. It's comedy gold, the supply ( in this administration at least) seems endless and the ratings support this approach.  Media that presents itself as 'hard news' has picked up on this and adopted much the same strategy, albeit with much of the explicit mocking muted. Unfortunately (for the administration, anyway) explicit mocking isn't usually required.

As a media relations strategy, reducing opportunities for mockery is probably a pretty safe bet. When 80% of what you 'do', if presented clearly and concisely, is eminently mock-able, you have a conundrum. And then there are the tweets. The only feasible way out of this painted corner is to reduce the credibility of the mockery.