White House Blocks CNN, NYT, and More from Press Briefing
by Anti-Media News Desk
New York Times, CNN, Los Angeles Times, and Politico all reportedly barred from afternoon
press briefing.
Just hours after President Donald Trump launched his latest rhetorical (and predictable) attack
on the press during a speech to right-wing activists, CNN and other outlets have reportedly
been blocked from attending Friday afternoon�s press briefing at the White House.
press briefing
CNN reports:
�The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico were also excluded from the meeting,
which is known as a gaggle and is less formal than the traditional Q-and-A session in the
White House briefing room.
�The Associated Press and Time magazine boycotted the briefing because of how it was
handled.
The White House Correspondents Association is protesting.
�The conservative media organizations Breitbart News, The Washington Times and One America
News Network were allowed in.�
The cable news outlet reported that its correspondents who were barred entry were offered �no immediate
explanation� from White House staff about why they had been denied.
The move, described as �unprecedented� by reporters and journalism experts, comes
a day after CNN reported that White House chief of staff Reince Priebus had attempted
to get the FBI to push back against reporting by several outlets, including the Times and
CNN, that there had been consistent communications between members of the Trump campaign and
transition teams and Russian government officials.
In a statement, the White House Correspondents� Association decried the move.
�The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today�s gaggle is being handled by the
White House,� said Jeff Mason, the group�s president.
�We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others
in the press corps who were not.
The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.�
During his earlier speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, Trump
repeatedly attacked the news media and called reporters supplying negative or critical coverage
of his administration an�the enemy of the people.�
The White House�s decision to selectively bar certain news outlets from a Friday afternoon
off-camera briefing with press secretary Sean Spicer has been decried as �undemocratic
and unacceptable;� �chilling;� and �totalitarian.�
Not to mention �stupid.�
CNN called it �an unacceptable development by the Trump White House.
Apparently this is how they retaliate when you report facts they don�t like.
We�ll keep reporting regardless.�
And New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet declared in a statement: �Nothing like this
has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations
of different parties.
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.�
In addition to CNN, the Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico, outlets that were blocked
from the so-called �gaggle� reportedly included The Hill, the BBC, the Guardian,
and BuzzFeed.
Right-wing outlets Breitbart and One American News were allowed in, among others.
The American Civil Liberties Union called the exclusion �yet another disturbing example
of the Trump [administration]�s contempt for the vital role a free press plays in our
democracy.�
Indeed, the incident played out just hours after Trump called the media an �enemy of
the people� at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland.
Other responses poured in online from lawmakers, journalists, and media watchdogs�some warning
of the decision�s implications, others cautioning against allowing the news to be a distraction
from larger matters:
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét