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White House Bars NYT, CNN, and Politico from Briefing

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

#311

Post by dragonwriter »

tdb7893 wrote: post #308
dragonwriter wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you think about it a two party system has a tendency to make the parties move towards the center in general. No, it doesn't. > 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. This requires lots of assumptions that may not be true in the real world. First, it assumes a party in power can't shift the electorate by suppressing…

There are a lot of things to pulls the two parties back out from the middle again and I'm aware that practically it's not like both parties are actually centrist. Maybe I should've been more clear but my intent was saying that a two party system leads to more centrist parties than a multi-party system. I honestly think that multi-party systems might be better but I also think that two party systems aren't completely…

> Maybe I should've been more clear but my intent was saying that a two party system leads to more centrist parties than a multi-party system.

It might result in more centrist parties (though I've never seen a convincing comparativr argument or evidence; median voter theorem is fine and all for the abstract idealized world it applies to but ignores pretty much every significant aspect of real-world political dynamics), but even so it doesn't seem to lead to more centrist governments.

> I honestly think that multi-party systems might be better but I also think that two party systems aren't completely aweful

Among democracies, degree of proportionality of representation is pretty directly correlated with popular satisfaction with government, and smaller numbers of parties are correlated with poorer proportionality; from the perspective of providing people the government they want, two-party systems turn out to mostly be, empirically, pretty awful, and the US's particular implementation near the bottom of the barrel among established democracies.

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

#312

Post by randomname2 »

Just for some perspective, the previous administration was also not great in this regard:

"Obama shuts Fox out of press briefings related to Benghazi" [1]

"The Obama White House went to war against Fox News": Jake Tapper. [2]

"Fishbowl DC has been keeping tabs of which media outlets have been allowed to ask a question at President-elect Barack Obama’s five press conferences so far. They report Fox News is 0–5. “Questions instead went to such outlets as ABC, New York Times, CBS, Reuters and the Associated Press.”" [3]

"In 2010, President Obama said that Fox News had a point of view which was “ultimately destructive” for America...The University of Minnesota’s Eric Ostermeier tallied up the number of questions each member of the White House press corp had been able to ask during all of Obama’s first term press conferences. ABC, CBS, the Associated Press and NBC led the pack, with ABC having been selected for questioning 29 times over 36 solo press conferences. (Overall, reporters have had fewer chances to ask questions than any White House press corps since Ronald Reagan’s.)...Fox News, though it has a reach that far outstrips its competitors and sometimes rivals the broadcast networks, was in ninth place on the list, having been called on 14 times...NBC’s Chuck Todd and ABC’s Jake Tapper (now at CNN) were called on the most of any reporters — they each got 23 chances to question Obama." [4]

"Mr. Axelrod said it was the view of the White House that Fox News had blurred the line between news and anti-Obama advocacy...By the following weekend, officials at the White House had decided that if anything, it was time to take the relationship to an even more confrontational level. The spur: Executives at other news organizations, including The New York Times, had publicly said that their newsrooms had not been fast enough in following stories that Fox News, to the administration’s chagrin, had been heavily covering through the summer and early fall — namely, past statements and affiliations of the White House adviser Van Jones that ultimately led to his resignation and questions surrounding the community activist group Acorn...Those reports included a critical segment on the schools safety official Kevin Jennings, with the on-screen headline “School Czar’s Past May Be Too Radical”; urgent news coverage of a video showing schoolchildren “singing the praises, quite literally, of the president,” which the Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson later called “pure Khmer Rouge stuff”...There followed, beginning in earnest more than two weeks ago, an intensified volley of White House comments describing Fox as “not a news network.”...Then, in an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, the president went public. “What our advisers have simply said is that we are going to take media as it comes,” he said. “And if media is operating, basically, as a talk radio format, then that’s one thing. And if it’s operating as a news outlet, then that’s another.”...“We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the deputy White House communications director." [5]

December 2012: Several journalists reported that MSNBC hosts were meeting privately with President Obama to discuss the impending “fiscal cliff” fight. [6]

March 2015: Politico’s media reporter, Hadas Gold, reported that “a group of journalists and columnists,” all on the left, met privately with President Obama, but the White House refused to say “who else was at the meeting or what was discussed.” [7]

[1] http://www.wnd.com/2014/01/fox-anchor-team-obama-threatened-...

[2] http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kristine-marsh/2017/01/1...

[3] https://thinkprogress.org/fox-news-shut-out-again-at-obama-p...

[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/17/obama-fox-news-pres...

[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/us/politics/23fox.html

[6] http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-hosts-spotted-visiting-obam...

[7] http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/03/obama-holds-off-...

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

#313

Post by donwan »

mythrwy wrote: post #144

Ya, well the press's treatment of Trump has been a bit one sided. And well out of proportion to his actual comments and deeds. You might not like Trump, and you might have good reasons but the above is true all the same. And, he is sitting president of the USA right now, irrespective of how you feel about him, his platforms and his supporters. The amount of vitriol involving Trump is ridiculous. It really is. I'm not…

The irony (I will refrain from using a more accurate word) of someone mentioning "civilization" while winking at the behavior of a draft-dodging, adultering, tax cheating, sexual-assaulting, business-failing, anonymous-sourcing-himself, racist xenophobic birther who lies every time he opens his mouth is really astounding.

Congratulations. Tell us more about your unique ideas of "civilization".

Imagining the kind of rationalization and intellectual gymnastics that is needed to make a post like yours on "civililization" boggles the mind.

Unless you'd like to explain further, one imagines that we will indeed just have to consider that an "exercise for the reader", right?

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

#314

Post by donwan »

mythrwy wrote: post #302
vikasg wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of the word 'fuck' doesn't mean it's uncivil. I'm merely making a point as forcefully as the subject demands.

My point is in the original post but you are making it so much better than I ever could.

You haven't made point one. Give it a fucking rest.

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

#315

Post by Clanan »

rc_bhg wrote: post #150
aestetix wrote: post #48

Title is misleading. Press was blocked from a single press briefing. I do not see anything in the article about briefings going forward. Can someone change the title so it's less sensationalized? Edit: thanks to the moderator for removing the "s" and making the word "Briefing" singular to accurately reflect the article.

It's still unprecedented. This has never happened before in America.

False. Obama held several "private sessions", often inviting only left-leaning journalists [0]. I think people are conflating "press gaggle" with official press briefings.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/03/obama-holds-off-...

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

#316

Post by AnimalMuppet »

oh_sigh wrote: post #95
asynchronous13 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kicking them off the plane is not equivalent to kicking them out of official Press Briefings.

It's still limiting access. Is what Obama did not bad at all, or just not as bad as what Trump's team did to NYT, CNN et al?

Well, it's better than strapping them to the wing...

That is: Given limited seats on the plane, what else are they going to do? Put the reporters on the plane, and make Obama walk?

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

#317

Post by roywiggins »

dukeluke wrote: post #222
gizmo686 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another potential strategy: attack the concept of honesty. If we get to a point where a significant portion of the population believes everyone, media and Trump, are lying then Trump has much more reign to do what he wants because any reporting on it will instinctively be branded as a lie. So will Trump's defense, but the net result is still a win over believed reporting on .

What makes things difficult is that the legitimacy of corporate media was seriously in question before Trump was elected. There seems to have been massive collusion between the mainstream media & the DNC to keep Bernie Sanders a fringe candidate. And it's tough to say "the mainstream media is rigged, but a president saying so openly is bad."

"Massive" is overselling it, unless there's a large body of evidence that I missed (which, given my preoccupation with Trump, would not be impossible).

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

#318

Post by mjcl »

maxerickson wrote: post #303
methusalasleeps wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also fun, but I didn't mean a cutout of trump.. an actual clinton or sanders, or anyone who has some backing to run next term can build a shadow cabinet and start answering the NYTs questions.

That's an esoteric use of "shadow government". It's typically used to mean a secret cabal that holds the real power.

I took him to mean "shadow" as how it's used in the term "shadow cabinet" in parliamentary democracies, particularly the UK.

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

#319

Post by billfor »

mejari wrote: post #253
___start wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did Obama call on conservative leaning publications? I'm pretty sure he favored the ones in the front row, the ones that favored him.

Yes, he did call on conservative leaning publications. Your vague memories are incorrect.

December 2012: Several journalists reported that MSNBC hosts were meeting privately with President Obama to discuss the impending “fiscal cliff” fight. May 2013: NPR’s Ari Shapiro reported that President Obama was meeting privately with “lefty columnists,” but hastened to add that there was “nothing nefarious” about it. November 2013: President Obama met again with liberal journalists, as Obamacare struggled with the failure of healthcare.gov and other problems. March 2015: Politico’s media reporter, Hadas Gold, reported that “a group of journalists and columnists,” all on the left, met privately with President Obama, but the White House refused to say “who else was at the meeting or what was discussed.”

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

#320

Post by mejari »

billfor wrote: post #319
mejari wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he did call on conservative leaning publications. Your vague memories are incorrect.

December 2012: Several journalists reported that MSNBC hosts were meeting privately with President Obama to discuss the impending “fiscal cliff” fight. May 2013: NPR’s Ari Shapiro reported that President Obama was meeting privately with “lefty columnists,” but hastened to add that there was “nothing nefarious” about it. November 2013: President Obama met again with liberal journalists, as Obamacare struggled with the…

Where have you copy-pasted this list from and what is it's relevance?
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