State sponsored media

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Inside Trump's bubble

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The first thing you do is knock out the press

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Police state activity: get rid of the press

Not the only incidents.  Just the two I saw this morning.

Remember when he used to say he hardly ever watches TV?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: Thank you, Kevin Kruse.

Of course, 4-8 hours is undoubtedly short, so he's right that the story was false in that regard.

"OURselves"

"We've done a poor job on press relationships. "

You might be underplaying it.

Somebody told him that bit about not taking any responsibility didn't play well.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Reporting without a net

Trump's war on the New York Times is going to get people killed.  And anyone who does not support a free and independent press should not be president.

From the publisher of the Times:

The Times is privileged to be one of the few news organizations with the resources to cover the world in all its complexity. And with that comes a responsibility to go where the story is, no matter the danger or hardship.

Every year, we put reporters on the ground in more than 160 countries.

[...]

In any given year, our newsroom budget includes funding for bulletproof vests, hazmat suits and armored cars. We develop detailed security plans for high-risk assignments, and our journalists themselves prepare obsessively.

[...]

Those of us leading The Times find it hard not to worry, knowing we have colleagues on the ground where war is raging, disease is spreading and conditions deteriorating. But we’ve long taken comfort in knowing that in addition to all our own preparations and all our own safeguards, there has always been another, critical safety net: the United States government.

  NYT

Perhaps an unwarranted feeling of security.

Over the last few years, however, something has dramatically changed. Around the globe, a relentless campaign is targeting journalists because of the fundamental role they play in ensuring a free and informed society. To stop journalists from exposing uncomfortable truths and holding power to account, a growing number of governments have engaged in overt, sometimes violent, efforts to discredit their work and intimidate them into silence.

[...]

And perhaps most troubling, the seeds of this campaign were planted right here, in a country that has long prided itself on being the fiercest defender of free expression and a free press.

[...]

And a rising drumbeat of legal efforts — from whistle-blower prosecutions to libel suits — aims to weaken longstanding safeguards for journalists and their sources.

[...]

Last year was the most dangerous year on record to be a journalist, with dozens killed, hundreds imprisoned and untold thousands harassed and threatened. Those include Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered and dismembered by Saudi assassins, and Maksim Borodin, a Russian journalist who fell to his death from the balcony of his apartment after revealing the Kremlin’s covert operations in Syria.

[...]

[T]hese brutal crackdowns are being passively accepted and perhaps even tacitly encouraged by the president of the United States.

Perhaps?

This isn’t just a problem for reporters; it’s a problem for everyone, because this is how authoritarian leaders bury critical information, hide corruption, even justify genocide. As Senator John McCain once warned, “When you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press.”

To give you a sense of what this retreat looks like on the ground, let me tell you a story I’ve never shared publicly before. Two years ago, we got a call from a United States government official warning us of the imminent arrest of a New York Times reporter based in Egypt named Declan Walsh. Though the news was alarming, the call was actually fairly standard. Over the years, we’ve received countless such warnings from American diplomats, military leaders and national security officials.

But this particular call took a surprising and distressing turn. We learned the official was passing along this warning without the knowledge or permission of the Trump administration. Rather than trying to stop the Egyptian government or assist the reporter, the official believed, the Trump administration intended to sit on the information and let the arrest be carried out. The official feared being punished for even alerting us to the danger.

Unreal. Somebody wake up Nancy Pelosi.

Unable to count on our own government to prevent the arrest or help free Declan if he were imprisoned, we turned to his native country, Ireland, for help. Within an hour, Irish diplomats traveled to his house and safely escorted him to the airport before Egyptian forces could detain him.

[...]

Eighteen months later, another of our reporters, David Kirkpatrick, arrived in Egypt and was detained and deported in apparent retaliation for exposing information that was embarrassing to the Egyptian government. When we protested the move, a senior official at the United States Embassy in Cairo openly voiced the cynical worldview behind the Trump administration’s tolerance for such crackdowns. “What did you expect would happen to him?” he said. “His reporting made the government look bad.”

[...]

Even though all those stories [about Trump that] he’s labeled fake [but] have been confirmed as accurate, there is evidence that his attacks are achieving their intended effect: One recent poll found that 82 percent of Republicans now trust President Trump more than they trust the media. One of the president’s supporters was recently convicted of sending explosives to CNN, one of the most frequent targets of the “fake news” charge.

[...]

My colleagues and I recently researched the spread of the phrase “fake news,” and what we found is deeply alarming: In the past few years, more than 50 prime ministers, presidents and other government leaders across five continents have used the term “fake news” to justify varying levels of anti-press activity.

[...]

Our foreign correspondents have experienced the weaponization of the “fake news” charge firsthand. Last year, Hannah Beech, who covers Southeast Asia, was at a speech by Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia. In the middle of his remarks, Mr. Hun Sen uttered a single phrase in English: “The New York Times.” He said that The Times was so biased that it had been given a ‘fake news’ award by President Trump, and he threatened that if our story didn’t support his version of the truth, there would be consequences.

[...]

I have raised these concerns with President Trump. I’ve told him that these efforts to attack and suppress independent journalism is what the United States is now inspiring abroad. Though he listened politely and expressed concern, he has continued to escalate his anti-press rhetoric, which has reached new heights as he campaigns for re-election.

[...]

Now, he has taken to demonizing reporters themselves, calling them “the true enemy of the people” and even accusing them of treason. With these phrases, he has not just inspired autocratic rulers around the world, he has also borrowed from them.

The phrase “enemy of the people” has a particularly brutal history. It was used to justify mass executions during the French Revolution and the Third Reich. And it was used by Lenin and Stalin to justify the systematic murder of Soviet dissidents.

[...]

Even as we worry about the dangers our own reporters face, those dangers usually pale in comparison to what courageous local journalists confront around the world. They search for truth and report what they find, knowing that they and their loved ones are vulnerable to fines, arrests, beatings, torture, rape and murder. These reporters are the front-line soldiers in the battle for press freedom, and they’re the ones who pay the greatest price for President Trump’s anti-press rhetoric.

[...]

This is a perilous moment for journalism, for free expression and for an informed public. But the moments and places where it is most difficult and dangerous to be a journalist are the moments and places where journalism is needed most.

[...]

I do not believe President Trump has any intention of changing course or muting his attacks on journalists. If recent history is any guide, he may point to my comments today and claim that The Times has a political vendetta against him.

[...]

I’m sounding the alarm because his words are dangerous and having real-world consequences around the globe. But even if the president ignores this alarm and continues on this path, there are important steps the rest of us can take to protect the free press and support those who dedicate their lives to seeking truth around the world.

[...]

Business, nonprofit and academic communities, all of which rely on the free and reliable flow of news and information, have a responsibility to push back on this campaign, too. That is particularly true of tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Apple. Their track record of standing up to governments abroad is spotty at best; they’ve too often turned a blind eye to disinformation and, at times, permitted the suppression of real journalism.

But as they move even deeper into making, commissioning and distributing journalism, they also have a responsibility to start defending journalism.

Our political leaders need to step up, too. Those elected to uphold our Constitution betray its ideals when they undermine the free press for short-term political gain.

[...]

Finally, none of these efforts will make a difference unless you raise your voice. Care about where your news comes from and how it’s made. Find news organizations you trust and enable the expensive, arduous work of original reporting by buying a subscription. Support organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders that defend journalists at risk around the world. Most of all, carve out a place for journalism in your everyday life and use what you learn to make a difference.

And the million-dollar question...

This administration has got to go

Now.




...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Chopper talk

From Daniel Dale quoting a Lawrence Smith (Louisville reporter) question:

Using Marine One as a backdrop, the White House has replaced formal briefings [which haven’t been held in more than five months] with impromptu chats where the president sets all the rules.

It was another bravura performance of “Chopper Talk.”

The latest iteration of President Donald Trump’s signature news conferences in front of a thwapping Marine One on Wednesday was a whirligig of boastfulness, slingshot attacks and public self-therapy — in other words, vintage Trump.

[...]

Wednesday’s careening, impromptu 35-minute news conference may have looked bizarre to veteran observers of the White House, not to mention maddening to television pros accustomed to high-quality audio and video production values. But there’s a method to the seeming madness.

The “Chopper Talk” sessions, as comedian Stephen Colbert has dubbed them, serve multiple goals for Trump, reporters and White House insiders say. They allow him to speak more often in front of the cameras than his predecessors, yet firmly on his own terms. He scans the pack of reporters, seizing on questions he wants, while ignoring others. He makes headline-ready pronouncements and airs grievances for anywhere from a few minutes to a half-hour — and then walks away when he’s had enough.

[...]

“If he was at a podium, we would be pressing him after he answers the question, we would be correcting him, we would be pointing out discrepancies in previous answers, and we’re not able to do that in the chaotic setting of a departure,” said CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang.

[...]

"[T]hey are terrible for reporters. It is impossible to hear, have a substantive dialogue, ask a follow-up question or do any serious pressing of the president. It is a fucking circus[,” said one White House reporter.]

[...]

Meanwhile, Trump has become his own de facto communications chief, setting policy and sparking controversies via Twitter and shifting the action from the staid briefing room to a roaring helicopter waiting on the South Lawn.

[...]

If Trump is departing on Marine One in the late morning, “he always comes out of the Oval Office, even if he hasn’t been to the Oval Office, because it makes him look like he’s been working all day,” said a second White House reporter.

[...]

“You basically have a jet airplane parked on the South Lawn,” said former Obama White House official Tommy Vietor in describing the “genius” of Trump’s Marine One pressers on a recent episode of “Pod Save the World.”

“You can’t hear the questions — he ignores anything that he doesn’t like,” said Vietor. “He just literally screams idiotic things like ‘I know nothing about Russia’ to this gaggle of the press. And there’s nothing they can do about it.”

[...]

[Doug Mills, a veteran New York Times photographer and board member of the White House Correspondents’ Association] said there are now “guidelines,” not rules, for how journalists should congregate as Trump arrives and departs. They enter in groups, as at the airport, with the radio pool reporter followed by inhouse White House pool. Next come the correspondents, with a fourth group including additional still photographers.

Such conventions became necessary as this unconventional news conference became routine. “Your jaw drops when he walks past and just waves,” Mills said. “Everyone stands there, ‘He’s not going to talk?’”

[...]

Unlike the briefing room, with its assigned seats, the makeshift news conferences have led to tensions on the White House grounds, especially when pool reporters responsible for providing information to the press corps as a whole found themselves out of earshot to cover the news.

[...]

And the loud noise of the rotor blades whirring in the background gives Trump a convenient excuse to respond to a question as he interprets it, instead of directly answering the question as it was phrased.

[...]

“He’ll just hear a word that catches his attention like ‘racism’ or ‘the squad’ or whatever the topic is, and he’ll just deliver what he’s probably already been tweeting about and what he already firmly believes so that can be difficult,” said Jiang.

[...]

[At one session, Trump] pushed a baseless claim that he lost New Hampshire in the 2016 election because “thousands of thousands of people” came into the state to vote from “locations unknown.” Trump claimed to know the “unknown” location, but when a reporter asked where he was referring to, he just ignored the question.

[...]

[White House communications director Stephanie] Grisham said last week that Trump is “so accessible” that she doesn’t “know what any of the press could complain about.”

[...]

“The fact that the White House press corps can no longer grandstand on TV is of no concern to us.”

  Politico

I saw one clip where a female reporter asked him something, and he said, "You're gonna have to speak up."  What a prick.

Also...11 false claims in 30 minutes.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  Speaking of Stephanie Grisham...



The best people.

Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke chimes in

Truth.

I share your frustration, pal.

Trump's favorite reporter has written a book

Trump’s battle with large parts of the American media could bubble back into view this week with the publication of a book by CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Acosta had his White House pass temporarily revoked last year after a clash with Trump at a press conference.

His book, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America, will be published on Tuesday. In May, the Guardian obtained an early copy.

Acosta writes that when Trump began his attacks on “fake news” outlets including CNN, the Times, the Washington Post and more, it was an act conceived by adviser Steve Bannon in the absence of effective Democratic opposition. Acosta’s thesis is that this spiralled out of control, to potentially dangerous effect.

[...]

Acosta’s book contains anonymously sourced reporting likely to anger the president further. One “senior White House official” is quoted as saying: “The president’s insane.”

  The Guardian

Yes

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Consolidating power - Part 2

This tweet was yesterday, so Dale is talking about today's schedule:

He will increasingly exclude media, particularly in meetings with foreign despots (but apparently, even with something as banal as a photo op with the Stanley Cup champions).  He's been doing it, but now he has carte blanche. 
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Something to hide

March 8, 2019 -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) today canceled a meeting with a coalition of press freedom groups--including the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the ACOS Alliance--one day after it postponed the long-scheduled meeting and two days after NBC San Diego reported on internal government documents that suggest that CBP maintained a list of journalists and activists with knowledge of the 2018 migrant caravan and singled them out for additional screening.

In a statement to news organizations yesterday, CBP claimed that it "has specific provisions regarding encounters with journalists." This contrasts with what CPJ and its partners were told in previous meetings when requesting any such protocols, which was that the public affairs office was not aware of any special provisions.

  Committee to Protect Journalists

That was before the leak.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Nasty authoritarian regime

Yes, that would be ours.

A Finnish journalist says the U.S. State Department rescinded a journalism award given to her because she criticized the Trump administration.

Foreign Policy magazine reported Thursday that Jessikka Aro was initially notified by the State Department that she would be receiving the International Women of Courage Award, but that those plans were later scrapped due to what an agency spokesperson called a "regrettable error."

“Due to a lack of coordination in communications with candidates and our embassies, a regrettable error was made and a candidate was incorrectly notified that she had been selected as a finalist. We regret this error. We admire Ms. Aro’s achievements as a journalist, which were the basis of U.S. Embassy Helsinki’s nomination,” a spokesperson told The Hill in an email.

  The Hill

Unbelievable.

[A]n unnamed State Department official familiar with the discussions told Foreign Policy that Aro's award was rescinded over her past criticism of President Trump.

There's no indication, according to the magazine, that Trump or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who presents the awards, were aware of Aro's nomination or the rescinding of her award.

Somebody did the research. And they probably didn't undertake this on their own.

“It created a shitstorm of getting her unceremoniously kicked off the list,” the State Department source told Foreign Policy. “I think it was absolutely the wrong decision on so many levels."

The decision “had nothing to do with her work," the official added.

[...]

“[When] I was informed about the withdrawal out of the blue, I felt appalled and shocked,” Aro told the magazine. “The reality in which political decisions or presidential pettiness directs top U.S. diplomats’ choices over whose human rights work is mentioned in the public sphere and whose is not is a really scary reality.”

Yes it is. Welcome to the Trump regime.

A rare show of solidarity among reporters

Way to be.  Hopefully this will become a trend.

Question:  Is there a representative of the Special Counsel's Office in attendance to object to any answers Cohen might give that interfere with the SCO's investigations?

The great and powerful Oz has spoken

Bend your knee or be stricken for all time!



Yeah, Nick?  I don't think journalistic standards is law.  Your lawyer has no scruples.  Like yourself.

And whoever is paying for Nick's lawsuit: you know better.  I'd suggest it might be His Lardship, but he's too cheap.  I assume it's the same source who hired the PR job for the little Covington shits.



Individual-1 must be having a scary morning watching TV.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE 2/21:

UPDATE 2/22:  In case you're still on the fence about Sandmann's lawyer's competency.


UPDATE 7/28:  The lawsuit has rightly been thrown out of court.

WTF?

What do you meant he press is not invited?  This is a government position, a government function.  How on earth do you get to the press needing an invitation?

Democracy dies died in darkness.


UPDATE:

New rules

New White Houserules for the press:






Sure looks that way.





That, and maybe they shouldn't lie all the time, making follow-up questions necessary.

And...no rules for Sarah the bull Sanders, though.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Doubling down on Jim Acosta

If you thought the Trump administration would seek to settle CNN and Jim Acosta's lawsuit out of court... think again.

After CNN won a temporary restraining order on Friday, forcing the White House to restore his press pass for 14 days, White House officials sent Acosta a letter stating that his pass is set to be suspended again once the restraining order expires.

From the looks of the letter, the W.H. is trying to establish a paper trail that will empower the administration to boot Acosta again at the end of the month.

  CNN

On the other hand, why would they send him notice?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 2:30 pm:  Uh-huh.  Just to be dicks is the answer that we figured it would be.  And nobody checks with the lawyers before they spout off.