02-26-2017, 01:14 PM
I cited the most extreme example. I'll cite some others which demonstrate that one way or another there is a history of the White House shutting out the press.
Lets start with a subtle one presented by The Columbia Journalism Review. It is worth reading as it gives some interesting insights about Obama and the press.
Obama also excluded specific media outlets from access to the president, just as Trump is doing. From a Rolling Stone article:
The press has long been dimly regarded by US presidents. Trump is not the first to make disparaging remarks against them. To quote just a couple of examples:
White House press conferences did not even exist prior to 1913, and since then they have been handled differently by each president. Presidents Coolidge and Hoover, for example, would only take questions submitted in writing. President Obama only called on journalists that were on his list of cooperative reporters.
President Kennedy instructed the CIA to keep watch on reporters and even had them wiretapped.click
In short, President Trump is only one president in a long history of an adversarial relationship with the press. Each president has had his own way of dealing with the issue, and Trump's tactics are by no means unique.
Lets start with a subtle one presented by The Columbia Journalism Review. It is worth reading as it gives some interesting insights about Obama and the press.
Quote:An exhaustive study of every official exchange Obama had with the press corps in 2014, supplemented by a review of daily press briefings and interviews with more than a dozen current and former correspondents and White House press secretaries, reveals a White House determined to conceal its workings from the press, and by extension, the public. The research, paid for by a fund established in memory of former White House correspondent Helen Thomas, makes clear that the 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 troubling irony, White House reporters say, is that they are working in what is arguably the freest press in the world, in an era of easily delivered information, and in a nation where an aggressive and unfettered media is considered essential to democracy. Yet they find it nearly impossible to accomplish what they see as their central mission
Obama also excluded specific media outlets from access to the president, just as Trump is doing. From a Rolling Stone article:
Quote:In mid-July, the White House openly snubbed a BuzzFeed reporter, Chris Geidner, leaving him out of a conference call on a forthcoming executive order, apparently in reaction to Geidner's reporting of leaked material from a hush-hush strategy meeting with LGBT advocates. Two months before, the White House had levied similar punishment on The New York Times for skirting a restriction called an embargo (information provided in advance on the condition that it can't be reported before a certain set time). Times writers used their own sourcing to report the story early, and the next time an embargoed document came around, detailing one of the president's upcoming speeches, Times correspondents found themselves excluded from the party.
The press has long been dimly regarded by US presidents. Trump is not the first to make disparaging remarks against them. To quote just a couple of examples:
Quote:Newspapers present for the most part only a caricature of disaffected minds.~Thomas Jefferson
Quote:From my candidacy for my present office in 1868 to the close of the last presidential campaign, I have been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equaled in political history, which today I feel I can afford to disregard in view of your verdict, which I gratefully accept as my vindication.~President Grant, 2nd inaugural address
Quote:Grover Cleveland, a secretive man, was openly hostile to the press, too. In his day newsmen did not even have working space in the White House. They were forced to stand outside in all kinds of weather and hope to buttonhole visitors as they entered or departed.
Read more: http://www.presidentprofiles.com/General...z4ZnJFptci
White House press conferences did not even exist prior to 1913, and since then they have been handled differently by each president. Presidents Coolidge and Hoover, for example, would only take questions submitted in writing. President Obama only called on journalists that were on his list of cooperative reporters.
President Kennedy instructed the CIA to keep watch on reporters and even had them wiretapped.click
In short, President Trump is only one president in a long history of an adversarial relationship with the press. Each president has had his own way of dealing with the issue, and Trump's tactics are by no means unique.