CNN and other outlets were in freak out mode Friday afternoon after several news outlets were apparently excluded from a White House press gaggle. Those excluded called it “absolutely unacceptable” and described it as an attack on the freedom of the press. Some of these outlets were excluded from the White House press room for false reporting.
CNN is one of the most outspoken on this issue, even though they are the main outlets reporting FAKE NEWS. CNN’s media correspondent Brian Stelter accused the Trump administration from trying to “cherry-pick” questions, defeating the media’s ability to hold the president accountable.
Dean Baqeut, executive editor of the New York Times, said: “Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties.”
Breitbart News reported this:
However, as the New York Times itself reported in 2015, President Barack Obama met privately with liberal reporters and columnists frequently throughout his tenure in office — “more than a dozen” times. And although he occasionally invited conservative columnists, “Liberal-leaning columnists from newspapers tend to dominate at Mr. Obama’s secret sessions.”
Obama’s private briefings for liberal members of the media, which excluded conservatives, were well-documented. A few:
- 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.”
Maybe I missed it. Just how many journalists did President Trump toss in jail?
OK, zero, as in none at all. So “freedom of the press has NOT been infringed. The “excluded ones” are still free to report any story they want (or invent). So the Trump Administration has hurt some feelings.
Go find a safe space and carry on with your tantrums CNN…