This should be alarming, right?

[DeeBye]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/white-house...-1.3998436

Journalists from the New York Times, CNN, the BBC and other media outlets say they were denied entry to a White House press briefing Friday.

Other outlets affected included the Los Angeles Times, Politico and BuzzFeed News.

The reporters were barred from the briefing in the office of White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

[eppie]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/white-house...-1.3998436

Journalists from the New York Times, CNN, the BBC and other media outlets say they were denied entry to a White House press briefing Friday.

Other outlets affected included the Los Angeles Times, Politico and BuzzFeed News.

The reporters were barred from the briefing in the office of White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

What is more alarming that the people let this happen.
No a surprise if you elect someone who builds houses as president.

[roguebanshee]

Sounds like US citizens needs to do something drastic if they don't want their nation turned into a clone of Russia.

[Jester]

At least when Harper shut out the press, he did it across the board. This looks more like Kirchner, or Chavez. We will change the system for the people, whose wishes are embodied in the beloved leader. The people know that the message of the leader is the truth, and the media are only lying pigdogs who deserve their fate. If they were honest, they would be loyal, and if they were loyal, they wouldn't be critical of beloved leader.

-Jester

[Lissa]

Yes, this is something that is very concerning. These are the kinds of tactics that lead to Hitler's rise and the tactics of most of the leaders of the Soviet Union/Russia (only two I don't include, although they may have done some is Gorbachev and Yeltsin).

[LavCat]

I'm not sure the NY Times is that alarmed. I read yesterday (I believe in The Economist) that since Trump, subscriptions to the NY Times were up 42%.

[Alram]

During the campaign, many media outlets were very far from being fair and impartial. And since he has taken office, Trump has been subjected to a barrage of negative coverage from the liberal media.

It is a incorrect to say that this treatment of the press is without precedent. To take what is possibly the most extreme example, consider the sedition act passed under President John Adams in 1798 .

The act prohibited "any false, scandalous and malicious" writing or speaking against the U.S. government, the president, or either house of Congress. The language of the act specifically cited those who brought the government "into contempt or disrepute," anyone who might "excite ... the hatred of the good people of the United States," stir up "sedition," or "excite any unlawful combinations ... for opposing or resisting any law of the United States." Further, the act applied to anyone who might "aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation." Violators of the Sedition Act were to be tried in federal court and could be punished by fines of up to $2,000 and imprisonment for up to two years.

Even before 1798, Federalists had prosecuted Republican editors in state courts under the common law of seditious libel. State judges and juries, however, leaned Republican, while the federal judiciary was overwhelmingly Federalist. Under a fiercely partisan application of the Sedition Act, Federalist judges indicted fourteen Republican editors, with ten convicted and imprisoned. The United States had only about fifty Republican-leaning newspapers at the time, so this constituted a substantial portion of the Republican press.

click

[Jester]

It is a incorrect to say that this treatment of the press is without precedent. To take what is possibly the most extreme example, consider the sedition act passed under President John Adams in 1798 .

... which is not only thought to be unconstitutional, but also considered one of the great blots on the history of freedom in the early Republic. There's precedent for just about everything at some point in US history. But some of them are definitely not worth repeating!

-Jester

[Alram]

I cited the most extreme example. I'll cite some others which demonstrate that one way or another there is a history of the White House shutting out the press.
Lets start with a subtle one presented by The Columbia Journalism Review. It is worth reading as it gives some interesting insights about Obama and the press.

An exhaustive study of every official exchange Obama had with the press corps in 2014, supplemented by a review of daily press briefings and interviews with more than a dozen current and former correspondents and White House press secretaries, reveals a White House determined to conceal its workings from the press, and by extension, the public. The research, paid for by a fund established in memory of former White House correspondent Helen Thomas, makes clear that the media most responsible for covering the president and his inner sanctum are given little insight into how decisions are made or who influences those decisions, whether from inside or outside the White House...
The troubling irony, White House reporters say, is that they are working in what is arguably the freest press in the world, in an era of easily delivered information, and in a nation where an aggressive and unfettered media is considered essential to democracy. Yet they find it nearly impossible to accomplish what they see as their central mission

Obama also excluded specific media outlets from access to the president, just as Trump is doing. From a Rolling Stone article:

In mid-July, the White House openly snubbed a BuzzFeed reporter, Chris Geidner, leaving him out of a conference call on a forthcoming executive order, apparently in reaction to Geidner's reporting of leaked material from a hush-hush strategy meeting with LGBT advocates. Two months before, the White House had levied similar punishment on The New York Times for skirting a restriction called an embargo (information provided in advance on the condition that it can't be reported before a certain set time). Times writers used their own sourcing to report the story early, and the next time an embargoed document came around, detailing one of the president's upcoming speeches, Times correspondents found themselves excluded from the party.

The press has long been dimly regarded by US presidents. Trump is not the first to make disparaging remarks against them. To quote just a couple of examples:

Newspapers present for the most part only a caricature of disaffected minds.

~Thomas Jefferson

From my candidacy for my present office in 1868 to the close of the last presidential campaign, I have been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equaled in political history, which today I feel I can afford to disregard in view of your verdict, which I gratefully accept as my vindication.

~President Grant, 2nd inaugural address

Grover Cleveland, a secretive man, was openly hostile to the press, too. In his day newsmen did not even have working space in the White House. They were forced to stand outside in all kinds of weather and hope to buttonhole visitors as they entered or departed.

Read more: http://www.presidentprofiles.com/General...z4ZnJFptci

White House press conferences did not even exist prior to 1913, and since then they have been handled differently by each president. Presidents Coolidge and Hoover, for example, would only take questions submitted in writing. President Obama only called on journalists that were on his list of cooperative reporters.

President Kennedy instructed the CIA to keep watch on reporters and even had them wiretapped.click

In short, President Trump is only one president in a long history of an adversarial relationship with the press. Each president has had his own way of dealing with the issue, and Trump's tactics are by no means unique.

[Jester]

In short, President Trump is only one president in a long history of an adversarial relationship with the press. Each president has had his own way of dealing with the issue, and Trump's tactics are by no means unique.

You raise a good point, and it deserves serious consideration. American history is long, and it's tempting-but-wrong to get so caught up in the moment (and in bias) that we forget the longer context.

By basic reply is that you are providing a Rogues' Gallery. These are not shining precedents of good presidents doing good things. These are examples of the failures of American institutions, and of the critical importance of checks on presidential authority. Jefferson was a schemer and a hypocrite who piously decried the muckraking of the press while simultaneously using James Callender to sling mud at his own opponents - only to have Callender turn on him later in life when Jefferson found the relationship inconvenient. Kennedy was an arrogant hothead, and let his anger push him into abusing powers that were not constitutionally his to wield. Grant's administration was a corrupt mess, and while that has almost certainly been overstated by historians interested in tarnishing his reputation (and advancing the reputation of his opponents...), the press was in fact uncovering the corruption of a deeply contaminated administration.

Coolidge, I think I'd be kinder to - he was hostile to the press. but this seems to be a more general stance of being reserved (Silent Cal!), rather than a policy of only talking to the media that says nice things about you, and overtly denouncing anyone who criticises your administration.

And yes, at the beginning of the Obama administration, the president and his team went to "war" against Fox News, for their involvement in hostile commentary and "fake news" (James O'Keefe and his "expose" of ACORN, among other things.) Other media outlets reacted much the same as they have now - by protesting that to exclude one is to insult them all, and Fox must be kept in the loop. Fox was not actually excluded in the end, and the administration bowed to media pressure; we shall see what happens under Trump. The Obama administration was notably poor about media transparency, but there is clearly room at the bottom.

So, yes. Not without precedent, but the precedents are not good ones. We are beginning from the lowest points, and the administration is being clear that they fully intend to follow through on their war on the media that disagree with them. Where this goes from here could very quickly end up in uncharted territory. And as past precedents suggest, how the rest of the media, the congress, and the public react to the President's behaviour is a critical part of how this proceeds from here...

-Jester

[FireIceTalon]

This asshole campaigned on a platform of hate and discrimination of nearly every form, including: contempt for working class and poor people, racism, sexism, homophobia, ablism, islamaphobia/xenophobia, and almost everything else under the sun you could think of. He appealed and continues to appeal to the most repressive elements of society in order to stir up wild nationalism and play off the fears of white supremacy and other ultra-right ideals, then turns around and blames the media for all his problems and then has the audacity to wonder why he is so unpopular? Are you kidding me? This is all too similar as to how fascism came to be in Europe during the 1930's.

As I've said plenty of times before, you reap what you sow. If he can't take the pressure and criticism by both the media and public at large, perhaps he should step the fuck down, or start taking responsbility for his actions and the crap he spews.

[Ashock]

Maybe I missed it. Just how many journalists did President Trump toss in jail?

OK, zero, as in none at all. So, freedom of the press has NOT been infringed. The excluded ones are still free to report any story they want (or invent).

Coincidentally, I equate this to not having the reporters from the National Enquirer or Star at the White House.

Oh and here are 11 moments Obama abused the press:

1. Campaign plane “hijacking” journalists. In 2008, the Obama campaign flew 25 members of the media to Chicago — without telling them then-Sen. Obama was not, in fact, on board. CNN reported: “[T]he press was essentially held hostage with no candidate and no choice but to fly to Chicago on a chartered plane.”

2. Closing White House events to all but the official photographer. Obama barred the media from events — including, ironically, an award ceremony where he was recognized for “transparency” — and often restricted photographers’ access, only releasing images taken by the official White House photographer.

3. Trying to shut out Fox News. The Obama administration targeted Fox News for isolation and marginalization, arguing that it was not a legitimate news organization but “the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” That served as a warning to other potentially critical outlets.

4. Stonewalling FOIA requests. The Obama administration “set a record” for failing to provide information requested by the press and the public under the Freedom of Information Act. The low point was Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, where tens of thousands of emails were hidden on a private server and deleted.

5. Prosecuting journalists and their sources. The Obama administration pursued Fox News reporter James Rosen’s private emails — then misled Congress about it. CNN’s Jake Tapper — to his credit — pointed out that Obama had used the Espionage Act against leakers more than all of his predecessors combined.

6. Wiretapping the Associated Press. After the Obama administration’s snooping on the AP was exposed in 2013, a senior NBC correspondent excused President Obama on the grounds that he would not have been nasty enough to alienate “one of the president’s most important constituencies, the press.”

7. Refusing to hold press conferences. For long stretches of his presidency, Obama refused to hold press conferences at all, going 10 months without a formal press conference in a critical stretch from 2009 to 2010. He heeled the lowest average annual number of press conferences of any president since Ronald Reagan.

8. Filibustering at press conferences. When Obama did, finally, hold press conference, he often limited the number of questions by delivering long, rambling, often condescending answers. He “wastes reporters’ time by refraining from answering questions with any candor,” Jack Shafer complained in Politico in 2016.

9. Attacking tough questions. When a Major Garrett of CBS actually asked a tough question — about why the administration seemed not to be trying hard to free Americans held by Iran, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian — Obama scolded him: “Major, that’s nonsense, and you should know better.”

10. Appearing on fringe outlets. While media elites gripe about conservative journalists being given a chance, Obama often restricted his appearances to fringe media: Inside Edition; Funny or Die’s Between Two Ferns (which was then nominated for an Emmy); YouTube stars; and a radio show called “Pimp with a Limp.”

11. Iran deal “echo chamber.” The Obama administration created “fake news” to support the Iran deal, setting up what it later boasted was an “echo chamber” of “experts” who would comment in the media to support the White House narrative on the negotiations. Meanwhile, key details were hidden from the public.

Through it all, President Obama regarded himself as a champion of press freedom, having run the “most transparent administration ever.”

Many mainstream media journalists ignored the Obama administration’s abuses. A few spoke out against them. But most of them continued to paint him in glowing terms, regardless.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/...s-freedom/

[DeeBye]

Maybe I missed it. Just how many journalists did President Trump toss in jail?

OK, zero, as in none at all. So, freedom of the press has NOT been infringed. The excluded ones are still free to report any story they want (or invent).

Coincidentally, I equate this to not having the reporters from the National Enquirer or Star at the White House.

So you're okay with this?

[Alram]

Maybe I missed it. Just how many journalists did President Trump toss in jail?

OK, zero, as in none at all. So, freedom of the press has NOT been infringed. The excluded ones are still free to report any story they want (or invent).

Coincidentally, I equate this to not having the reporters from the National Enquirer or Star at the White House.

So you're okay with this?

It's much ado about nothing. Business as usual in Washington DC.

[kandrathe]

You raise a good point, and it deserves serious consideration. American history is long, and it's tempting-but-wrong to get so caught up in the moment (and in bias) that we forget the longer context.

By basic reply is that you are providing a Rogues' Gallery. These are not shining precedents of good presidents doing good things. These are examples of the failures of American institutions, and of the critical importance of checks on presidential authority.
...

One needs only look at Trumps 30 years of scrapes with the press, or his abuse of power as real-estate tycoon. How do you think he'll suddenly morph into a person with presidential mettle? Also, the press also is flawed, and not blameless in this. OMG, BuzzFeed! What's next TMZ?

These BAD character flaws were the first reason I would not vote for a candidate. There were no good choices fielded, thus "none of the above" was the correct choice imho.

There is no prohibition on the press doing their job, nor any laws stating the WH must grant unfettered access... Sheesh. Hitler, Chavez.... You over-react much? ?

[Jester]

There is no prohibition on the press doing their job, nor any laws stating the WH must grant unfettered access... Sheesh. Hitler, Chavez.... You over-react much?

I haven't said anything about Hitler. But certainly the belligerent populism reminds me of a great many Latin American experiments-gone-wrong with demonizing the media-that-doesn't-sing-your-praises for their horrible disloyal attacks on dear leader.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

There is no prohibition on the press doing their job, nor any laws stating the WH must grant unfettered access... Sheesh. Hitler, Chavez.... You over-react much?

I haven't said anything about Hitler. But certainly the belligerent populism reminds me of a great many Latin American experiments-gone-wrong with demonizing the media-that-doesn't-sing-your-praises for their horrible disloyal attacks on dear leader.

-Jester

I think you over estimate his charisma.

His minority of actual support are not on the level, or mass of Chavistas.

[Jester]

His minority of actual support are not on the level, or mass of Chavistas.

I think that's correct. Venezuela is poor and unequal, it's much easier to sell the idea that "the people" have been rooked by a "crooked" elite backed by a "lying" media - not least because there's more truth to the allegations.

But the mode of doing business is a) troubling, and b) corrosive.

-Jester

[Lissa]

IMO, this quote from Teddy Roosevelt says it all concerning any US President:

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Trump needs to start listening to everyone, not just his base if he wants to really get things done. So far all of his actions have been coming from the Alt-Right playbook. (Why do you think so many people say President Bannon instead of Trump?)

[Ashock]

Maybe I missed it. Just how many journalists did President Trump toss in jail?

OK, zero, as in none at all. So, freedom of the press has NOT been infringed. The excluded ones are still free to report any story they want (or invent).

Coincidentally, I equate this to not having the reporters from the National Enquirer or Star at the White House.

So you're okay with this?

Did you read the rest of my post? Either way.....

http://www.larryelder.com/column/trump-e...took-long/


Trump Eviscerates the Liberal Media – What Took So Long?

It was riveting. In his first solo press conference, President Donald Trump spent much of the hour berating the media for what Trump called anti-Republican bias and its relentlessly negative “tone.”
It’s about time. The liberal media has long been sticking it to Republicans.
In October 1992, during the presidential race between President George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Investor’s Business Daily found that over 90 percent of the economic news in newspapers was negative. At the time, the economy was well into a recovery, on its 19th consecutive month of growth. Yet much of the business news was sour.
The next month, November 1992, Bill Clinton won. Investor’s Business Daily found that suddenly only 14 percent of the newspapers’ economic news was negative, a dramatic decline in negativity and upswing in positive economic news.
ABC News’ Peter Jennings, NBC’s Tom Brokaw and CBS’ Dan Rather anchored the nightly news for the then-“Big Three” networks on the first day in office of both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. On Clinton’s first day in office, he reversed a President Ronald Reagan policy forbidding the use of federal money for abortions. President Bush reversed Bill Clinton’s reversal.
So how did networks cover each president’s first day on their evening news broadcasts?
Peter Jennings, ABC News, 1993: “President Clinton kept a promise (emphasis added) today on the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Mr. Clinton signed presidential memoranda rolling back many of the restrictions imposed by his predecessors.”
Peter Jennings and Terry Moran, ABC News, 2001: “President Bush begins by taking a tough line on abortion,” said Jennings in a teaser for the story. Moran then reported: “One of the president’s first actions was designed to appeal to anti-abortion conservatives (emphasis added). The president signed an order reinstating a Reagan-era policy that prohibited federal funding of family planning groups that provided abortion counseling services overseas.”
Tom Brokaw, “NBC Nightly News,” 1993: “Today, President Clinton kept a campaign promise (emphasis added), and it came on the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion.”
Tom Brokaw, “NBC Nightly News,” 2001: “We’ll begin with the new president’s very active day, which started on a controversial note (emphasis added).”
Dan Rather, CBS News, 1993: “Today, with the stroke of a pen, President Clinton delivered on his campaign promise (emphasis added) to cancel several anti-abortion regulations of the Reagan-Bush years.”
Dan Rather, CBS News, 2001: “This was President Bush’s first day at the office, and he did something to quickly please the right flank (emphasis added) in his party: He reinstituted an anti-abortion policy.”
Here’s another example.
The media routinely refers to the recession President Barack Obama inherited as the “great recession.” But during the recession President Reagan dealt with, unemployment hit 10.8 percent, versus Obama’s peak of 10.0 percent. During Reagan’s presidency, prime interest rates hit 20.5 percent, and inflation, which was modest under Obama, averaged 13.5 percent under Reagan in the early ’80s.
Reagan lowered taxes, continued deregulation and slowed down the rate of domestic spending. Obama, of course, did the opposite.
The left thinks that, as with Obama, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s active intervention in the economy “rescued” it from the Great Depression. Many economists strongly disagree. William H. Peterson of the Heritage Foundation says, “The Great Depression sprang from three fatal mistakes — the Fed’s jacking up of money-supply growth in the 1920s, which fueled the stock market boom; the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, hiking import duties to their highest level in U.S. history and inviting deadly foreign retaliation against U.S. exports; and the Revenue Act of 1932, hiking the top income-tax rate from 24 percent to 63 percent.”
In “Out of Work,” a book about unemployment in 20th century America, economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway say, “The common interpretation is that this Depression, this misery, this inequality, reflected rigidities and imperfections in the markets for goods and resources. Yet the evidence we have presented is more consistent with a far different story. The market, particularly the critical market for labor, was prevented from operating in a normal fashion by the interventions of government. These intrusions turned a severe shock that started a recession into a major depression. Government failure, not market failure, was the problem.”
Consider what Roosevelt’s secretary of treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., wrote in his diary: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. … I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot!” Yet high school text books teach us that government spending, what the left today calls government “investments,” pulled the economy for the abyss.
To reverse media bias, President Trump has his work cut out for him. But his press conference was a good start.


Guess Larry is just another Uncle Tom, eh? Or maybe a "mediocre negro"? See below.

http://www.infowars.com/steve-harvey-fir...t-comment/