President-elect Donald J. Trump held a press conference, his first since July, where he “jokingly” asked Russia to hack into Hillary Clinton’s private server, and we actually learned a lot.

Just a day after President Barack Obama’s farewell address to the nation, Trump took the stage and reminded us just how different the executive branch will function under the new administration. Trump, without a teleprompter, spoke on a variety of topics related to the transition of power and his upcoming administration. And, as always, his speech was characterized with heaping doses of superlatives.

We learned some new policies and views from our soon-to-be president along with a timeline for a Supreme Court nomination. But what was more telling was Trump’s style and interactions with the media. Trump seemed to play good cop, bad cop with certain news agencies in his opening statement. After slamming BuzzFeed and CNN for running stories related to intelligence reports about unsubstantiated claims of nefarious acts conducted by Trump, he then praised other organizations for being “so professional.”  

This may become a staple of his presidency — releasing information via tweets, memos and other persons related to the administration. More importantly, we also saw evidence that he will restrict some media outlets’ access to him. CNN reporter Jim Acosta was told he would be kicked out if he kept trying to ask his question. During his campaign, Trump had a Latino reporter from Telemundo forcibly removed from a press conference, only to let him back in.

What we learned in this press conference besides the obvious policies and headlines was that news organizations must play a more active role in getting information out of Trump, figuring out what he actually means and then fact-checking his information. This will prove to be a difficult, but very important, task as Trump often “cites” his claims by “millions of people.”

Trump’s press conferences accomplish what they set out to achieve. He releases news-worthy information, jokes with — and threatens — reporters and gets his performance broadcast live by most, if not all, media outlets. We simply hope that we won’t have to wait half a year to watch the next one.