White House Bars Times and 2 Other News Outlets From Briefing
WASHINGTON — Journalists from The New York Times and two other news organizations were prohibited from attending a briefing by President Trump’s press secretary on Friday, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps.
Reporters from The Times, CNN and Politico were not allowed to enter the West Wing office of the press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, for the scheduled briefing. Aides to Mr. Spicer allowed in reporters from only a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed to attend.
Organizations allowed in included Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times, all with conservative leanings. Journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Fox News also attended.
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Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press, who were set to be allowed in to the briefing, chose not to attend in protest of the White House’s actions.
“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement. “We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”
The White House Correspondents’ Association, which represents the press corps, quickly rebuked the White House’s actions.
Good Grief! This actually happened? I'm sure that President Lincoln would have liked to bar some of the yellow journalism outlets from back then, but he never did...
Criminal, isn't it?
Rump is attempting to disseminate the flow of information before it even leaves the news outlets.
In the past, White House press secretaries would sometimes host small gaggles with “expanded pools.” But the selective invitation of conservative outlets, some of whom have been more than overtly friendly to the Trump administration, is unprecedented.
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I guess that he thinks that he's king.
...and he also thinks we are his serfs.
I would hope that the NY Times would have a huge increase in subscriptions...
Isn't one of our best freedoms, the freedom of the press? How does Trump think he can get away with this?
From one serf to another, I find this to be MOST disheartening!
Trump is such a snowflake. Pathetic.
What's the difference between what happened today and Obama's frequent meetings with only left wing media?
Well, on the face of it, nothing. I was unaware that Obama barred more conservative press from his official press conferences. When did that happen?
At one time the Obama administration made it's "pay czar", Kenneth Feinberg, available for a round of interviews, but excluded FOX news from being allowed to interview him. Other news organizations refused to participate unless FOX was included, so the Obama administration relented and allowed FOX to have an interview also. However FOX was never excluded from any press briefing or conference, ever.
Obama had plenty of meetings with large numbers of sympathetic reporters and columnists while excluding conservative outlets. Use google, it's your friend.
My friend, you made the claim, so back it up please.
Good for Trump the times went off the liberal deep end years ago. They are hacks no reason to have those haters there.
But isn't that censorship? I mean, can he do that?
Unfortunately he can. We have a free press, but the coward in the White House only has to communicate with the people through organizations that are friendly to him. The goal is to suppress the free press so that the only information coming out of the White House is what Trump says and only the way he says it. Only the "truth" according to Trump and Trump alone. Like Senator McCain said, it's how dictatorships are started.
I can't imagine the West wing office of the press secretary being very big they can't let all these fake news outlets like the National Enquirer and NYT's in.
But what about the BBC? THAT's a slap in the face...
I hope someone sues, because they will win.
A few other news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal and FOX have said that they will boycott any further briefing that refuse to allow all accredited news organizations in.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/24/white-house-blocks-cnn-new-york-times-from-press-briefing-hours-after-trump-slams-media/?utm_term=.4957f45df4a9
More elbow room for Limbaugh and Alex Jones. They're both pretty big guys and take up a lot of space.
It's a shame that all that space in their craniums is being wasted.
If Denver got nuked, Dean's response would be "more room for me".
"I hope someone sues, because they will win."
On what grounds?
First amendment rights?
You can sue for just about anything-- it's winning that is difficult...
First amendment rights?
You can sue for just about anything-- it's winning that is difficult...
The government can't suppress free speech (including the media) but the press has no right of access to the president. He can refuse to talk to the press just like anybody else can. Or put another way, the president can choose to associate with whomever he chooses. I think what he did was both petty and asinine but he has the right to do it.
OK.
I was shocked.
The BBC says it was blocked by the Trump cowards also:
Reporters from the BBC, The New York Times, CNN and other outlets were excluded from a briefing by the White House press secretary Sean Spicer. No reason was given, but Associated Press and Time magazine boycotted the so-called gaggle in protest.
Even Fox is pushing back on this. Reporters, whether liberal or conservative, tend to stick together.
Trump enjoys his new Generalissimo duds.
I find it amusing that CNN, having already apologized for publishing fake news, and getting caught feeding questions to Hillary Clinton before an interview, would complain about being excluded. Also, both the NYT and BBC have received the HONEST REPORTING award many times for being the most biased media in English language media.
However, because there is such an audience for biased and/or fake news, it's probably wrong to prevent those sources (or should I say "authors") from news briefings.
Thanks, six.