How very Goebbels of it. The Trump White House has banned some media from a briefing given by White House spokesperson Sean Spicer. From the New York Times:
Journalists from The New York Times and several 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, BuzzFeed News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times 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 only allowed in reporters from a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed.
Those organizations 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.
Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press, who were set to be allowed in, chose not to attend the briefing in protest of the White House’s actions.
But according to a Trump spokesperson everyone was invited and they added in a few more reporters just to be sure. The statement is contrary to reality. In days gone by the technical term for this sort of statement was a lie. Again from the New York Times:
A White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, played down the events in an email on Friday afternoon.
“We invited the pool so everyone was represented,” Ms. Sanders wrote. “We decided to add a couple of additional people beyond the pool. Nothing more than that.”
Mr. Spicer’s small-group Friday session, known as a gaggle, was scheduled as a no-camera event, less formal than his usual briefings that are carried live on cable news. But past administrations have not hand-selected outlets that can attend such sessions.
“It was clear that they let in a lot of news outlets with less reach who are Trump-friendly,” said Noah Bierman, a White House reporter for The Los Angeles Times, who was barred. “They let in almost every network but CNN. That’s concerning, the handpicking aspect of it.”
Two of the barred outlets, CNN and The Times, have been a particular focus of Mr. Trump’s ire. And during the presidential campaign, some journalists from BuzzFeed News and Politico were prohibited from attending Trump rallies.
The only word for this is fascist. It is petulant fascism which makes it worse, not having the desired effect in that the excluded agencies can no doubt source the information from other sources, yet displaying a complete indifference for first amendment rights. We are not at the jackboot and book burning stage, yet.
And in other news the Trump Whitehouse is going to to revoke White House guidance on transgender students’ use of public school bathrooms and allow States to decide while at the same time has indicated that federal powers concerning marijuana will be exercised. The attack on LGBT rights will no doubt upset Colonial Viper who confidently predicted that Trump would protect LGBT rights a few months ago.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress