At his first press conference since last July, Trump dealt with a variety of questions about his plans. Many of the questions were about the dossier that was leaked to the media, alleging that the Russian government has compromising information about Trump’s personal and financial affairs. The allegations have not been verified. The document was posted in full by a website called Buzzfeed, and reported by CNN. Trump angrily denounced the dossier as “fake news,” which it may or may not be.
When Jim Acosta of CNN tried to ask a question, Trump refused to acknowledge him, and shouted out “Your Network reports fake news.” When Acosta tried again to ask a question, Trump’s communications director Sean Spicer warned him that he would throw him out if he didn’t stop asking questions.
Everyone in the White House press corps is accredited. CNN is a reputable mainstream network, not Breitbart or Gawker or Buzzfeed. The president doesn’t get to decide who is allowed to ask questions.
The next time Trump pulls this stunt, the entire press corps should get up and walk out. Together. En masse. A man like Trump can’t survive without the media. The media should not let him control them. If we the public are to be informed, every member of the press corps should have the same right to ask questions and expect to get an answer.
We must all protect our Constitutional freedoms and not allow them to be eroded, bit by bit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Agreed.
The White House Press Corps should boycott the White House and refuse to cover anything the Littlefingers administration wants to pimp out to the public.
Let Littlefingers reach out to his deplorable supporters through his rants on Twitter.
Yes , Yes and YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
This was certainly one of the most egregious and frightening points in that news conference. I also think the deep anger with which he spoke was chilling. We are in for some hard times for sure.
Mamie,
After I watched that press conference, I realized that Trump has no sense of humor. He can never laugh at himself. He never smiles. He needs constant flattery. He has a furnace of rage, grievance, and resentment boiling inside him.
That rage probably dates back to when his father threw him out of the house to get rid of him, and sent him off to live in a private military academy.
It would have been something if Acosta refused to acquiesce to the point of being thrown out. That would make quite a statement.
That’s what I was hoping for as well. A reporter being manhandled would have demonstrated to many what this fascist regime will do.
You got it!
yes
Fawning coverage and lack of embarrassing questions has been a requirement for access to the President at least since GWB’s White House. Obama continued the tradition. Stonewalling, withholding information and denying access to specific journalists/outlets is now a time-honored tradition.
It was actually Reagan’s administration: http://markhertsgaard.com/on-bended-knee-the-press-and-the-reagan-presidency/
After watching Obama give the Medal of Freedom to VP Biden, I wondered if Trump could ever give a speech like the one Obama gave in that ceremony. Would Trump ever be able to be caring, kind, compassionate, sincere, self deprecating, and humble – true qualities of a leader. I guess we all know the answer. 😦
What exactly has Biden accomplished? Please refresh my memory.
It is the President’s decision to award this honor, so ask Mr. President.
Didn’t Biden invent Twitter?
Where would we be without that?
Biden’s greatest accomplishment: he is a man of dignity, compassion, and character.
In the age of Trump, our expectations for elected officials have been dramatically lowered. Dignity, honesty, character, kindness are in themselves accomplishments in the time of Trump.
Days of trump???
“That depends on what is is” ring any bells? “I did not have sex with that woman.” How about that one?
There you go again.
Th office of the president lost its dignity a long time ago. Not because of this election.
Diane, that is true and add to that a LIFETIME of public service.
You should read his autobiography “Promises to Keep”. He was the youngest man ever elected to the US Senate. His wife and baby daughter were killed driving to Washington for his inauguration. He served on the Senate judiciary committee, chairing the hearings for Clarence Thomas.
He is a man of great dignity, and an excellent record of public service. I admire VP Biden a great deal.
BTW- I am a rock-ribbed Republican, and a Trump supporter.
Not only that, he is one of the few who have not gotten rich while serving in office.
Either that, or he has one heck of an accountant!
Trump will never be able to give a caring, kind, compassionate, sincere, self deprecating and humble speech, even if someone else writes it for him. He is a narcissist and as Mayo Clinic defines: “a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism”. Add that to his megalomaniac psychopathological condition in which delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence predominate. It is all about him, his wealth, his power.
The man has no empathy and will never be humble. Character defects for a POTUS.
A further thought , no long rant needed, anchors must employ the Mic kill switch . Cable TV journalism has become a game show circus. Might as bring back the Gong .
well
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/10/the-three-reasons-the-white-house-is-right-to-ignore-fox-news/
“The next time Trump pulls this stunt, the entire press corps should get up and walk out. Together. En masse…”
I am sure that if I were to search in your blog, I would find the same statement and encouragement for when FOX news was totally ignored, right?
In October 2013 you were as angry about a reporter being totally ignored by the White House press secretary, and thought it unacceptable behavior, right?
Rudy,
I have never written on this subject before. A typical rude comment defending Trump again.
Not at all. But you seem to forget that trump is not the only person who is rude to the press. Obama his considered to be the least open president as far as the press is concerned. His press secretary totally shut out an accredited member of the White House Press Corps from another channel.
The Obama White House has been the most unfriendly and uncooperative white house according to press agencies.
So to make it sound as if trump is doing something “no other white house has done before,” is historically about as incorrect as you can be.
Rudy, we can always count on you to make false equivalences and to defend Trump. If he starts a war, you will say “So did FDR!”
Really, “No other White House?” Rudy, you should really do your fact checking homework before you spout off repeating what you allegedly heard from an element of the often misleading, conspiracy-theory loving, hate-filled Alt-Right media machine.
And if you thought up that phrase yourself, that’s even worse.
http://www.presidentprofiles.com/General-Information/A-History-of-the-Presidency-Presidents-and-the-press.html
“Richard Nixon left the White House in disgrace 40 years ago this month, but the war he launched against journalists has continued under Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and other recent presidents.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/nixons-revenge-his-media-strategy-triumphs-40-years-after-resignation/375274/
I sent the links to the sources. Enjoy.
I don’t see any links.
Earlier today.
Not good enough. I’m not searching for your alleged links “earlier today”. You’ve done this before. Referring to links that require time to search and find if they are actually there.
Provide them again or you are just another paid or unwitting shill for Littlefingers playing a shell game.
Or the msg was “moderated out.” I’ve noticed that happening quite a bit when I try to balance the field, to show that previous presidents acted the same way trump is blasted for – but were not blasted.
Rudy,
So glad Trump has you in his corner to defend him.
Should he release his tax returns as every other president and candidate has for 40 years?
You really are wearing blinders, aren’t you?
I don’t defend the man. I don’t like the man. You make it sound as if he invented Stuff, and make it sound like it never happened before.
Re his tax returns: his business, not mine. There is neither a legal nor an ethical need for it.
Rudy,
No more nasty cracks from you.
Stop rationalizing every act by Trump. He should reveal his tax returns because the public needs to know whether he makes foreign policy decisions to enrich himself and his family.
I think he should put everything in a blind trust. Solves the problem in a much better way then publishing his tax returns.
And by the way, you were right. It was not Hilary’s fault she lost.
Latest news, “The Guardians of the Galaxy actress said she thinks Hollywood “bullies” led to Trump being elected.” Zoe Saldana.
There’s no such thing as a blind trust when you still own the company.
A blind trust means that you sell the assets, put them into a trust managed by an independent trust (not your family), and have no knowledge where or how your assets are invested.
Trump can’t give his business to his sons and call it a blind trust.
The Wall Street Journal said the only way he could be free of any conflict of interest is to sell his assets–all of them– and put them into a blind trust.
He is not doing that.
He said at his press conference that if his sons did a poor job running the company, he would fire them. That means he has no intention of giving up control.
The opportunities for influence peddling and graft are mind boggling.
And you really think I do not know what a blind trust is???
You worried about trump using his position for personal business gain.
Blind trust = no knowledge.
No knowledge = no gain
Rudy,
You wrote “I think he should put everything in a blind trust. Solves the problem in a much better way then publishing his tax returns.”
You can’t create a blind trust without selling your company and all its assets. Trump refuses to do this.
Whether he WANTS to do was not the topic. What he NEEDS to do prevent personal gain is the blind trust. His tax return does not solve the problem.
A number of commentators on different channels have remarked that trumps situation is a first. Sure, there have been presidents that had great wealth. But none of them had so many business interests in so many countries.
One of the things he “sells” is his name. What should they do? Rename the buildings? Even a blind trust won’t solve that problem.
He should sell anything that makes money for him. That’s the sacrifice you make to be President. He should choose between making money and being president, but he won’t. He loves money too much.
No argument there. But he can’t “unsell” buildings that have his name but that he does not own.
Now what?
He can stop collecting money from buildings that are renting his name.
A friend of mine lives in a development called Trump Palace or Trump something. She was disgusted that the building had his name, even though he didn’t build it or own it. She organized a petition drive, collected 600 signatures, and the owner agreed to remove his name from the three buildings in the complex.
Here’s what I think.
Lame excuse. Oh, come on, you can do better than that.
I allege that you never had links to reliable sources, and came up with this lame excuse to make it look like you did. Similar to Littlefigners Donald Turmp when he claims he heard or read something, but he never says where he heard or read anything. Brittbart probably.
Instead of the lame excuse that they were deleted, provide the links again.
All you have to do is write, “Here are the links, Lloyd.”
And then copy and paste the links right below those five words. But if Diane’s computer security warns her not to open those links after she clicks on them, because they lead to a site that will infect any computer that links in to visit,so she deletes them, that also explains something about your alleged sources.
That’s why my Internet security program does. And the only links that I ever get warning about always come from some Alt-Right loony who gets all their news from misleading, conspiracy theory sites like Littlefingers does.
Once that happens, that Alt-Right loony lost all credibility with me, and I never read what they say again.
right…
I use my own name. Some people in this list have googled me. You really I’m stupid enough to send out a virus loaded link???
Actually, yes, I do think your are stupid like a fox.
You could ask the good dr….
Maybe this helps
Why Trump scares me
Mar 16, 2016
Full disclosure: I am a conservative Christian, I am a Republican and I am an immigrant. Having grown up in the Netherlands, I am very much aware of the history of Western Europe during the last century. Times were bad, and Jews were accused of being responsible. As they tried to leave the continent (ror obvious reasons) many nations refused them access. The results are known.
We hear Donald Trump make some statements that we should keep “Muslims out…” We hear him speak about how the illegal immigrants are the cause of our labor problems, how the majority of them are drug dealers, rapists etc. His rallies become more violent. He encourages the violence in his speeches.
The tactics are coming close to those of the NSDAP. Those who disagree are shouted down (even by Trump himself). When someone jumps out of the audience and hits someone escorted out under police custody, and nothing happens to that person, that scares me. When Trump then offers to pay for the legal defense, that scares me even more.
When I hear that Evangelicals and Conservative Christians vote for him, that puzzles me after all Trump has said and encouraged. What worries me, is that the Republican Party may end up with this man as the nominee for the presidential election. What does this say about the Republican Party? Do we really believe the presidency is worth this kind of a cost?
Rudy Schellekens
Muscatine
I sent a copy of a letter to the editor in my hometown newspaper. This is where my neighbors know me. I’ve been on the local tv several times. People in town know my face, my children.
Lloyd,
I delete Rudy’s comments when he makes insulting remarks directed at me. He does it often. He is sarcastic, snarky, and likes to repeat that I can’t read, don’t listen, or lack his intelligence and superior education. Rudy’s remarks are always moderated because of his nastiness.
Thank you.
I HAVE to repeat things because you keep misstating what I say.
You have a lot of patience. I’d block him from leaving comments on any of my blogs if he acted like that.
Dan Olweus, creator of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, defines bullying in his book, Bullying at School: What We Know and What We Can Do:
“A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself.”
Rudy, why do you avoid what I asked you to do and keep changing the subject?
Don’t answer that question. Think about it, and the answer is for you. Just reply with the links to your sources that allege Obama is the worst president in history for the way he handles the media.
Use only one word, “Lloyd,”
Then copy and paste those links.
I don’t want to read another word from you. And once I read those sources, that is if you ever share those links here like I’m asking you to do, I will decide if I accept them or not based on what I learn about those alleged news sites, because you can be sure that I will research their history.
By the way, OpEds are not news. If you send me an OpEd that isn’t based on reputable facts with links that lead to those facts, you will fail to make your point. You will fail to convince me. You will fail.
Huffington post:
Spare Me Your Hypocritical Journalism Lecture, Mr. President
At an awards ceremony, Obama praises journalists. Back in the White House, he blocks honest press queries with all his power.
By JACK SHAFER March 29, 2016
The last person in the world who should be lecturing journalists on how to do journalism is President Barack Obama. Yet there Obama was Monday night at a journalism award ceremony, yodeling banalities about the role of a press in a free society, moaning over the dangers posed by “he said/she said” reporting, and—to the delight of the assembled audience—attacking Donald Trump in every way but name. The press-heavy crowd, convened by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications to give the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting to Alec MacGillis, clapped at Obama’s 30-minute address, encouraging his best Trump-baiting lines about “free media” and the dangers of “false equivalence.”
What they should have done is bombard Obama with rotten fruit or ripped him with raspberries for his hypocrisy.
Story Continued Below
How do we hate Obama’s treatment of the press? Let me count the ways. Under his administration, the U.S. government has set a new record for withholding Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a recent Associated Press investigation. FOIA gives the public and press an irreplaceable view into the workings of the executive branch. Without timely release of government documents and data, vital questions can’t be answered and stories can’t be written.
Obama’s “Insider Threat Program” has turned employees across the government—from the Peace Corps to the Social Security Administration to the Department of Agriculture—into information-squelching snitches. If this isn’t Trumpian behavior, I don’t know what is.
“Obama hates the press,” New York Times national security reporter James Risen said not long ago, “and he hates leaks.” AP Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee has decried the “day-to-day intimidation of sources” by the Obama administration, judging it worse than the Bush administration on that score. And in a 2013 piece, POLITICO’s Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen documented Obama’s mastery of “limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.”
As ProPublica has reported, at the same time the Obama administration has been paying lip service to protecting whistleblowers, it has pursued national security leaks to the press with a vehemence unmatched by any previous administration, using the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers who leak to journalists more times than all previous administrations combined. Obama holds infrequent news conferences, and he wastes reporters’ time by refraining from answering questions with any candor. He claims to helm “the most transparent administration in history,” while bending government policies and practices toward secrecy.
“The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration,” wrote Leonard Downie Jr. in a Committee to Protect Journalists report. And it’s not just Downie complaining. You could break Google by asking it to list all the top journalists who regard the Obama administration as Press Enemy No. 1.
The deeper you study Obama’s relationship with the press, the more you want to ask what business he has giving out a press award. Was Trump himself busy that night?
Obama didn’t invent the White House’s in-house media shop, which produces videos and other media to disseminate approved “news” to the public and the press. As long ago as the early 1930s, H.L. Mencken was complaining about how the Roosevelt administration’s press agents choked the information pipeline with mimeographed handouts that lazy reporters would then repurpose as news. But Obama’s White House has perfected the practice, with a 14-member operation called the White House Office of Digital Strategy that bypasses the press corps with tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook postings and more.
The press doesn’t like that, arguing that it stiff-arms open discourse. Obama thinks it’s funny. At the 2013 Gridiron Dinner, he said, “Some of you have said that I’m ignoring the Washington press corps—that we’re too controlling. You know what, you were right. I was wrong, and I want to apologize in a video you can watch exclusively at Whitehouse.gov.” While it’s Obama’s political prerogative to appear when and where he wants to, to fuel his own media operation, and do so on his own terms, it’s duplicitous of him to operate his own propagandistic operation and then judge the real press for its alleged failings.
Obama Administration’s Relationship With Press Among The Worst Ever, Report Shows
Mar 04, 2015 | Updated Mar 04, 2015
Jackson Connor HuffPost Media fellow
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI VIA GETTY IMAGES
During his first days in the White House, President Barack Obama promised to usher in an era of openness in government, stating that a new commitment to transparency would only serve to “strengthen our democracy.” But now, some seven years later, a new study conducted by the Columbia Journalism Review suggests that relations between the White House and the media have never been so closed off.
CJR looked at press briefings, conducted interviews with White House press secretaries and correspondents, and studied every official interaction between Obama and the press corps last year, all with the goal of shining a light on the president’s complex relationship with the media. What CJR found was a “White House determined to conceal its workings from the press, and by extension, the public.”
Advertisement
AdChoices
“[T]he 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 study reads. “Evidence suggests that the relationship between the president and the press is more distant than it has been in a half century.”
For years the media has accused the Obama administration of declaring a war on journalism. Most recently, the government’s combative relationship with the press has been on display in its legal battle with James Risen, a New York Times reporter who refused to testify against a source accused of leaking him classified information.
In February, Risen called the Obama administration “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation,” and said he would spend the rest of his life “fighting to undo damage done to press freedom in the United States by Barack Obama and Eric Holder.”
But CJR doesn’t let reporters of the hook, either. The study says the press has been held prisoner by the demands of social media, chasing clickable quotes rather than substantive information. The pervasiveness of social media got so out of hand, apparently, that White House press secretary Josh Earnest put an end to off-camera morning meetings in his office because journalists would use the opportunity to tweet every word he said.
“At press conferences, the overwhelming tendency is to ask about the day’s headline or to look for the ‘gotcha’ question, instead of addressing long-term accountability issues,” the study reads. “Reporters ask questions not to get information, but to get a reaction. And even with that strategy, they rarely succeed.”
I asked for links, not this. Go roll your hoop someplace else. I’m not interested.
The links to your sources and nothing but the links. If you continue to ignore my request, I will continue to ignore what you write in your comments.
Now that I am at a real computer… Of course, now you will argue that none of these are reputable sources.
http://www.cjr.org/analysis/the_president_and_the_press.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/04/obama-press-worst-ever-administrations-relationship_n_6794920.html
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/obama-hypocritical-journalism-lecture-213775
https://freedom.press/news/how-obama-administration-laid-groundwork-trumps-coming-crackdown-press/
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/311026-obamas-legacy-will-be-one-of-secrecy-and-hostility
https://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-surveillance-post-911.php
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/02/president-obama-white-house-reporters-access
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-presidency-and-the-press-20140804
http://fortune.com/2016/03/29/obama-media/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/obama-promised-transparency-but-his-administration-is-one-of-the-most-secretive/2016/05/24/5a46caba-21c1-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299_story.html?utm_term=.354bda7efe16
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/29/472219989/president-obama-chides-media-for-2016-election-coverage
I’m not reading a book, and that’s what you sent me, a book. Two or three pieces will do. At a glance, I saw Op-Eds. Everyone has an opinion, but that doesn’t mean they are right.
So I selected three and they were all Op-Eds; bitch pieces.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/obama-hypocritical-journalism-lecture-213775
This pretty much sums up the rant from Politico: “Obama didn’t invent the White House’s in-house media shop, which produces videos and other media to disseminate approved ‘news’ to the public and the press. As long ago as the early 1930s, H.L. Mencken was complaining about how the Roosevelt administration’s press agents choked the information pipeline with mimeographed handouts that lazy reporters would then repurpose as news. But Obama’s White House has perfected the practice, with a 14-member operation called the White House Office of Digital Strategy that bypasses the press corps with tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook postings and more.”
My second choice was Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-presidency-and-the-press-20140804
Another Op Ed about an off the record conversation Obama had on Air Force 1.
“With the chat being off the record, a definitive accounting of what was said is hard to come by; it is clear, though, that the thrust of the president’s message was this: Foreign policy is hard, you guys are scoring it like a campaign debate, and moreover, you’re doing it inaccurately. He went further, telling the dozen or so reporters that what he favored was a judicious use of American power, and that his primary concern was not to get the country embroiled in situations from which it might take a decade to extract ourselves. He offered up an oddly sophomoric mantra for his foreign policy: “Don’t do stupid shit.” …
And from that writer there was also this: “I’m biased in that I think Obama is right about most things. I also believe he’ll be remembered as an excellent president. Which is strange to say, because if you are a consumer of any kind of political news these days, the only impression you get is that the Obama presidency is on the verge of collapse, and that he either doesn’t know or doesn’t seem to care. It’s a complete disconnect, and it has everything to do with how the president is covered.” …
And I do not see anything wrong with “Obama during his two campaigns for the presidency, had made a point of going over the heads of the media (denigrated as “the filter”) and communicating directly with voters. With Obama in office, reporters have complained that the approach has sometimes bordered on pathology.” …
“The origin story of Obama’s messy relationship with the press is the origin story of the president himself and his seminal 2008 campaign. Even as Obama was showing off an electrifying knack for motivating and organizing people, his team was beginning to grapple with what was quite obviously a media world in the throes of reinvention.”
NOTE: I don’t blame Obama. I have a BA in journalism and I wouldn’t trust most journalists to get it right if my life depended on it. It’s a lot smarter to go directly to the people.
My 3rd choice was NPR that started with, “President Obama delivered a stern rebuke to the media, for their role in the 2016 campaign and, as he sees it, not holding candidates accountable for ‘unworkable plans.’”
NOTE: I agree with Obama. The media didn’t do their job, or Littlefingers Donald Trump wouldn’t be the next president. Littlefingers played them like a pee-pee fountain.
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/29/472219989/president-obama-chides-media-for-2016-election-coverage
NOTE: If I was president, I’d rather go straight to the voters too and bypass the media. Who cares if the media writes endless Op-Eds complaining, because he wouldn’t do what they wanted? It’s obvious to me that there are a lot of spoiled rotten lazy reporters out there who don’t want to do the work it takes to take down a corrupt president, like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did to Nixon.
I stopped reading at “CNN is a reputable network”. What a joke!
If that is the case, why make Such a fuss???
There is the Arctic and the Antarctic, opposite polls. In media there is Fox News and CNN.
“Fox News was really starting to kick CNN’s butt all over the place. And how were they doing that? Well, some of it was the whole “preaching to the choir” thing, where the audience is really into you because you’re telling it what it wants to hear, but Fox’s execs also understood that the “anti-Ted” approach (making your anchors the stars INSTEAD of the news, and finding the most charismatic and (sometimes) polarizing anchors out there and encouraging them to say whatever they felt like saying on TV — that such an approach would make CNN seem boring by comparison.
“CNN eventually reacted to this by trying the same strategy”
https://www.quora.com/Is-CNN-a-credible-news-source-anymore
This means if you are a based FOX News junkie, you’ll hate CNN and the opposite is true of CNN junkies.
According to Business insider citing a study from Pew Research, the BBC is now the most trusted news source in the U.S.
“BBC and The Economist top the list of outlets that are trusted by every ideological group, while BuzzFeed and The Rush Limbaugh Show are at the bottom.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-most-and-least-trusted-news-outlets-in-america-2014-10
That must mean if you are an open minded person, who wants a news source that can be trusted not to feed a far-right or far-left bias, meaning what you want to hear vs the truth/facts, you turn to the BBC and stop wasting time bashing FOX and CNN.
Lloyd,
I don’t agree with your comment about CNNand FOX.
FOX is certainly the Trump cable station.
CNN plays the news without bias.
MSNBC is to the left and is the antithesis of FOX.
I think FOX is not news; FOX is a consistently conservative propaganda outlet.
I can’t honestly judge CNN since I don’t follow CNN. I was only quoting someone from Quora in my comment. I provided a link to the source of that
But in CNN’s defense, the Business Insider piece that refers to a study from Pew Research shows that CNN has more trust as a news source than FOX does.
At the same time, I once read the Economist until I started to find an obvious bias in their news reporting.
http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-most-and-least-trusted-news-outlets-in-america-2014-10
On that most trusted list, there are two American news sources that rank right below the BBC, and they are NPR and PBS. I’ve read that before in media studies that measured bias in the news. That NPR and PBS consistently did all they could to eliminate bias in their new reporting. This is probably why the Alt-Right that loves to lie and mislead wants to defund NPR and PBS and get rid of them.
Frankly, I am surprised the press didn’t do this on Wednesday. That action would have overshadowed all the other circus-like events occurring. But you have to give him and his staff credit. They have this press corps completely flummoxed. While Anderson Coooer and Seth Myers are given kudos for their “interviews” with her who shall remain nameless, she certainly held her own and managed to talk over both of them with some success. Frightening, horrifying.
I think that the press is still reeling and also regretting there was not some collective action. Rachael Maddow seems to be pushing for more collective action. She has featured Trump’s LIES, and called them LIES, for several nights ina row.
Here’s the link and what really happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d69vcwOACk
Really, Al! This guy is dangerous.
>
I loved you as Johnny Fontaine!
I have been saying this all along. Walk away. Don’t go. Don’t give him the audience he craves.
Why are media still asking Drumph if his campaign had contact with Russia? Putin already stated there were regular contacts at many levels.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-russia-trump-idUSKBN1351RJ
Our lying PEOTUS told reporters that no one in his campaign had any contact. No wonder he is becoming the least popular leader to move into the Presidency. Pathetic.
this was done by the Russians. Or the alt.right people. Or the alt.left people.
“The president doesn’t get to decide who is allowed to ask questions.”
Yes, they do. All have been doing it for decades going back at least to Unca Ronnie.
“Trump’s communications director Sean Spicer warned him that he would throw him out if he didn’t stop asking questions.”
Was that as bad as this? From Democracy Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSiBpqk_93U
The Donald still thinks he is the CEO of a large Crporation and not merely the President of a Democratic nation who relies on a free press to keep our public servants HONEST. Maybe it’s too soon to speak of impeachment but if he keeps up his authoritarian habits, even the Republicans, not the most courageous Congress we’ve ever had, will begin a discussion about his removal?
And that is why Obama’s press secretary ignored FOX journalists, right? If it was okay for a Democrat to do that, why is it now all wrong when a Republican does the exact same thing?
None of you clamored about the entire press corps walking out. No one complained about the prosecution of journalists who were determined to protect their sources by the Obama government.
What a pick ‘n choose lot!
We have the facade of a free press. Does anyone remember the lead up to the Iraq War? Retired generals paid by the Bush administration were out in full force in Television Land to spout the party line.
YEP!
I completely agree with you, Diane. Sadly a lot of people are gutless. I worked at a
university for forty years and was always appalled at how the administration pushed faculty around. A bunch of bullies just like him.
Our public education systems are based on bullying from feds to the state dept of ed down through the district admin through the school admin through the teachers and eventually dumping the malpractices onto the students.
Extortion, fear, “do as I command or else” are everyday, every hour, every minute occurrences.
And the teachers and adminimals comply like GAGA Good Germans.
And the children know it, even if they can’t express it.
Yup!
Terrific substantive suggestion. How to get buy-in?
Doing that now is too late. Not having done that in 2013 makes them look stupid, partisan and petty in 2016.
Rudy, it is never too late to do the right thing.
Thoroughly agree with Diane!
If only we would take that thought and eliminate all the proven malpractices that discriminate against the students and hinder them in their learning.
Got that adminimal speak down pat, eh!
Divide and conquer is the ruling dynamic at work here and the members of the press are falling for it In the same way that the AFL-CIO did not call for a general strike when Reagan decimated PATCO, the opening salvo in the war on organized labor.
amy
I don’t know where you were but I was using my vehicle to block access to LaGuardia airport. As a member of Organized Labor who also had a best friend who was fired as an air-traffic controller, after I urged him to honor the picket line. . He got his job back thanks to Clinton some 20 years later In time for a photo opp closing the old tower at LaGuardia
Now you are forgetting a few things. One, PATCO was representing a very highly paid group of workers who supported Reagan as well as the Teamsters not part of the AFL CIO, there was no love lost .
It is not at all clear that labor could call for a General strike under existing labor law . It is absolutely clear that they could not call for a strike in support of PATCO or any other unions. That is a secondary boycott outlawed by Taft Hartley because it was the most powerful weapon Labor had. Far more significant a loss than even Right to Work.
So what could labor have done perhaps a non economic general strike at a later time. Or by magic they could have hoped their members decided not to go to work in solidarity . . Because any encouragement to strike in support of another Union could result in the Jailing of Union leaders and the garnishment of their treasuries.
The opening salvo in the war against labor was Taft Hartley 1947 followed by Landrum Griffen 1959 then Rico statues were applied to labor in 1970. Treating any labor violence as an organized crime act .
We Americans have (fortunately) had little experience with coups and despots, but as a student of Latin American history, I find many echoes that trouble me.
Trumps’ cabinet is composed of billionaires and generals. He’s retaining his private personal security force. Today, the Washington Post detailed that the DC head of the National Guard, responsible for security during the inauguration, must step down at 12:01 PM on January 20, in the middle of the ceremony. He was appointed by George Bush II.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/commanding-general-of-dc-national-guard-to-be-removed-from-post/2017/01/13/725a0438-d99e-11e6-b8b2-cb5164beba6b_story.html?utm_term=.26d35ac5224c
I saw Kellyanne Conway on Seth Myers’ show. She proudly stated that Trump is using Twitter to circumvent legitimate news outlets in order to talk directly to his followers. I heard one of these followers on an NPR call-in show this morning. In her unmistakable Minnesota accent, she implored folks to see what Jesse Ventura has discovered in Russia – that they had more Christmas decorations in Moscow than in all of Minnesota, because Russia has turned into a Christian nation. She continued on to say that they have much more freddom over there than Americans do.
For at least eight years, until he was too ill to continue, Hugo Chavez hosted a program entitled “Álo, Presidente”, broadcast between 11:00 AM until about 5:00 PM. The ostensible purpose was to further the Bolivarian Revolution, while blaming all of Venezuela’s problems on the US. Cabinet ministers were required to attend. In 2008, while live, he ordered ten battalions to the border with Colombia.
Given Trump’s experience with “The Apprentice”, I would expect his show to have higher production values. I’m sure the lady from Minnesota will be tuning in.
The CIA has ample experience with coups.
Yes, Abigail, so we should welcome a coup in our country, is that the logic? Not to worry, Donald will get rid of the CIA and rely on the FSB.
No one will object. No one will leave. These media are complicit in Trump’s rise to power. It’s too late for them to decide they’re outraged that their Frankenstein’s monster has turned on them.
Trump is working to not only destroy our trust in government, he is working to destroy any belief in the media. The media is corporate run and I have many allegations against their accuracy, but they do not deserve to be totally diminished. I don’t understand why people don’t see the horror of this person. Why is he still being supported? He is a danger to this country. He lies. When will he tell the truth and when will he lie? Nothing he says can be trusted. He will say and do anything to support himself.
http://robertreich.org/post/155767441025#.WHoHlJsnoxw.gmail
Five Ways Trump’s “News Conference” Wasn’t a News Conference
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Blog
13 January 17
Tyrants don’t allow open questioning, and they hate the free press. They want total control. That’s why Trump’s so-called “news conference” on December 11 – the first he’s held in six months – wasn’t really a news conference at all.
Consider:
Trump refused to answer questions from reporters who have run stories he doesn’t like, or from news outlets that have criticized him. This is a blatant attempt to control the news media by making them reluctant to run negatives stories about Trump for fear they’ll be frozen out.
He loaded the audience with paid staffers who cheered his statements and jeered at reporters. Never before has a president-elect or president held a news conference larded with paid staffers, designed to give the impression that the media are divided between those who support him and those who criticize him.
He continued calling the media “dishonest.” This is part of Trump’s continuing effort to discredit the press and to reduce public confidence in it.
He condemned individual news outlets. Trump criticized CNN for dispensing “fake news,” called Buzzfeed “a pile of garbage,” and sarcastically called the BBC “another beauty.”
He repeatedly lied, and the media in attendance weren’t allowed to question him on his lies.A sampling of Trump lies from his “news conference”: (Click on the full article to get the list of lies.)
He reminds me of the Russian 10-11 year old boys I teach. The other day three were playing a vocabulary game when one got angry, walked away in a huff, and sat at his desk, sulking. The problem? He was loosing. Does it every time he looses. He always tries to worm his way into a game being played by girls and tries to boss them around. I shut down everything, tell the students it’s his fault, make everyone do desk work, hold him back from recess, make his life miserable, and call his parents, who always stick up for him. Sound familiar? Trump doesn’t get his way, becomes a 10 year old boy, and his staff stick up for him. At least I’m done with this student at the end of June. This is going to be a long four years. Or eight; that’s what Trump’s been saying since November. To quote Carrie Fisher… Time for some Wishful Drinking!
This is a very disturbing comment coming from s teacher.
Yes, it’s quite alarming, indeed. 😦
I believe Trump is trying to discredit the media so that, in time, people will think that what he says is the “real” news or the “truth.” If you keep saying something enough, you may get a lot of followers. Twitter is a good vehicle for him because it permits no profound discussion, people have short attention spans, and he can bully from afar without confronting people to their faces. Cowards do that. We are seeing it more and more in our students (and parents). Our media outlets are far from perfect, and journalists are human and so they have flaws and biases. I guess this shows that we are called to listen hard to more than 140 characters and try to understand where the “news” is coming from.
That makes a lot of sense. Why should the press allow this bully to speak to them as he did. How do we respect a man that shows no respect for others who disagree or ask questions of him?
He is a scary person . I hope the White Press Corps will walk out.
Buzzfeed and the tabloid CNN reported that hookers were using the toilet on the President elect. This is do outrageous, no wonder the other reporters did not defend that CNN reporter with the really really loud microphone (Does anyone truly believe this was not a set up?).
I’m surprised that so many readers of this blog, including teachers (yikes!) get their news from cable news channels instead of actual newspapers.
The unverified dossier was disgusting and so disrespectful. The intelligence community made a claim that there is a connection ruin between Trump and the Russian government based on this garbage. It’s so unprofessional and so ridiculous. I sure hope there is a big shakeup in the IC. People need to be fired for this.
CNN did not report what was in the dossier. It reported that the President and Trump had been briefed about it. That is called news.
How about ignoring the tweet reports. Any acknowledgement by the press seems to feed this narcissistic beast!
It is hard to ignore the Tweets. That is how this guy communicates with the public. Usually at 5 am, when he is all alone and stewing about some slight.