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White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

nytimes.com

231–240 of 407 posts

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#231

This is not the action a strong, secure ruler would take. This signals that they're afraid of what they may ask and how their readers may react. What does this accomplish that ignoring the reporters in question would not?

The president is not a "ruler"

He thinks of himself a dictator and is banning all of the papers who keep outing his administration scandals and Russia ties.

The more he goes on Twitter blaming the FBI and the NYT of leaking fake info, the more true it most likely is.

He didn't fire Flynn because the NYT pulled some random story out of their ass.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on if they start excluding organizations and lining up softballs from cranks.

This is exactly the strategy the WH is starting to employ. Look at Russian tactics against the press in 2006-2007 and you can predict the WH next move. They are stealing from their playbook. Revoke. Replace. Erode.

"Stealing"? Vladimir let Donald borrow the book and make photocopies, and he's happy to explain all the parts that are not clear.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#233
post #93

This country appears to be on a very dangerous path. I don't remotely deny Trump and his administration's responsibility and complicity for taking us down this path, but given how widely understood his issues are within mainstream discourse, I wanted to take a step back and critically look at the not-Trump aspects. Firstly, Trump needs to be understood in context as the outsider who none of the establishment took ser…

Have you watched his press conferences and speeches? Just watched the live feed - no commentary? He really does call the press an enemy of the people. He really does repeat factually incorrect statements over and over even after he was corrected. I've talked to a lot of people who have espoused the "It can't really be this bad - the media must be exaggerating". Trumps own words quickly casts away that delusion. Serio…

He made a big point of complaining about this characterization at CPAC. He says he loves the media, welcomes criticism, isn't against negative stories, but is against fake news, making up sources, making up stories.

You don't have to believe that this is happening at the NYT to agree with the principle of what he's saying, that those who wage disinformation campaigns against the American people are the enemy of the people. Maybe you believe this is Trump. Maybe you believe this is the mainstream media. Maybe you believe it's the Russians, but somebody here is lying, and they are absolutely the enemy of the people.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#234
post #44

I just can't get worked up about this. Had these "news" organizations been doing their jobs I might be more concerned. As it stands this is just elevating one group of propaganda orgs over others. The difference between what Trump has done here and what prior administrations did is the publicity and brazen transparency around it. I find it amusing that people think this is somehow a terrible, ominous event. This is a…

what job are they not doing?

They have only just started being critical of an administration. Prior to Trump they basically played the "access" game: they would eschew doing genuinely tough journalistic investigation in exchange for having access to high profile politicians in interviews and other situations. This isn't a liberal or conservative thing (I'm far to the left of this country's mainstream). Even the stuff they're going after Trump for is shallow obvious things, mainly because of the shallow obvious ways that Trump lies and otherwise acts poorly.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#235

For anyone who has actually watched these press briefings in their entirety: Does anyone else think these are pretty much the worst way to get to the bottom of issues? Here's how it seems to work: * The press secretary (or President, or whoever) makes a statement * He or she chooses a journalist to ask a question * Journalist asks question * Press secretary answers question in as much or as little detail as he/she wa…

It's not useless at all. Banning CNN and other relatively hostile or left leaning news corps is not really meant to protect Trump from them. After all, their readership is likely in large part against Trump already. No, the move is a warning to the news organizations who stay . It's a message that they will be kicked out if they don't push stuff that the administration likes.

Note that TIME and the AP refused to take part if others were excluded.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#236

I'm finding I'm having a hard time reconciling the current climate - not necessarily at his supporters (or the opposite), but just at how polar opposite everyone seems to be on this. For me, I see these organizations as not treating him poorly, but actually willing to call out things he is not being factual on. But at the same time, maybe I'm being biased against him. I want the discourse, but I'm just struggling to…

In our FPTP voting system, a two party system naturally emerges. And during times of hardship, instead of a middle-ground being found like would occur in a multiparty system, things become even more partisan and contentious. It's a fundamental facet of our political system, and won't ever change by using the political system. The political momentum needed is just too great.

If you think about it a two party system has a tendency to make the parties move towards the center in general. If a party gets much more extreme than the populace then they will lose easily against an opponent just a little more moderate than them. Trump's views seem a little more extreme than the general populace but if you look at it he didn't even win the popular vote.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#237
post #42

Good for Trump. CNN and friends not only have no credibility left, they've treated him with such disrespect and disdain that I'm not surprised he ain't doing them any favors. Trump will probably leverage social media and YouTube a lot, and the media can continue to re-spin stories downstream like before. Just far fewer people will take them seriously.

As a non-American, it fascinates me to watch the mental gymnastics indulged in by Trump supporters to justify behavior that's clearly harmful and indicative of more harmful behavior to come. Does it not seem like a bad thing that your president is excluding media that are critical of him from press briefings? Doesn't that seem like it might not be a good thing for the general well-being of the nation?

The GOP mantra has been for at least 10 years that anyone in the media criticizing anything they do is a Liberal Shill Who Is Lying. Trump is just the natural conclusion of that stupidity, which is why he hates the NYT so much. They print evidence of his corruption and he can't stand it.

Thankfully this stunt is probably going to cause the NYT's subscription rate to go even higher than it currently is and will probably break another subscription record this month.

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#238
post #221
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please name a news organization that was allowed to attend press conferences by Obama, then later banned because he didn't like what they had to say. edit: Since you won't be able to find one by Obama, how about any president in the last 50 years?

Obama had tried to do the same thing with Fox News. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-obamas-feud-with-fox-n... The difference in this case is how wildly inaccurate their reporting has been. Nearly everyday they're misrepresenting what President Trump has said, and sometimes they outright lie. It borders on hysteria. Which is ridiculous, because if they didn't ratchet everything up to 11, they could make serious…

So the Treasury department tried to stop Fox from attending a meeting once, but didn't actually do it because it was wrong.

And he didn't go on a Fox Sunday news show one time.

Not really helping your case here.

They don't lie about him, they don't have to; they represent him as he represents himself. He says something out loud and they describe it, it's not their fault he changes his mind about what he wishes he had said after the fact.

He has taken to blatantly and explicitly lying about simple verifiable facts, and doubling down on those lies when challenged. How should the press deal with that besides calling it what it is? Why should they give him the benefit of the doubt after that?

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#239
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please name a news organization that was allowed to attend press conferences by Obama, then later banned because he didn't like what they had to say. edit: Since you won't be able to find one by Obama, how about any president in the last 50 years?

>The administration has taken increasing steps in recent weeks and months to isolate the TV network, with some Capitol Hill veterans recalling no such similar steps by any president since Richard Nixon’s retaliation against The New York Times and The Washington Post during Watergate. >“The point is this, and it really needs to be made: Fox is not just another television network,” said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durb…

[deleted]

Re: White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

#240

According to The Hill, these organizations were also barred - BBC, Daily Mail, The Hill, Buzzfeed, LA Times http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/321049-white-hous...

The LA Times?--not exactly a heavy hitter or even terribly liberal.

They must have just banned anybody with the word "Time" in their name.

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