Major News Orgs Are Pissed The White House Blocked ‘Em From A Press Event

A number of major mainstream news organisations are absolutely livid after their reporters were blocked from attending today’s informal White House press meeting.

Media outlets CNN, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Politico, The Hill, Buzzfeed News, and even the bloody BBC were excluded from the media “gaggle.”

Reporters held out of today’s White House briefing. pic.twitter.com/8uqelMjrtp

— Noah Bierman (@Noahbierman) February 24, 2017

During the meeting, Press Secretary Sean Spicer – the bloke so famously impersonated by Melissa McCarthy – told reporters who were allowed in that the White House would “aggressively push back” against so-called “false narratives.”

The extraordinary move came just after U.S. President Donald Trump used his speech at a conservative political conference to, once again, lambaste the “dishonest” media and “fake news.”

FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn’t tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017

Reactions from the excluded organisations was as swift as they were disbelieving. Brooke Baldwin, the CNN anchor charged with delivering the news on live TV could barely comprehend it, and seemed equally stunned as she recounted Trump’s message that “the media is the enemy of the American people.”

 

 

BuzzFeed News’ Editor-In-Chief Ben Smith assumed being blocked had something to do with his publication’s decision to publish an unverified intelligence dossier containing compromising info on Trump. Y’know, like the golden shower stuff:

Russia story just eating the White House alive. What are they even doing here? https://t.co/HVjvzVVi8N

— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) February 24, 2017

Marty Baron, editor of The New York Times, went a bit further. He said “this is an undemocratic path that the administration is traveling… There is nothing to be gained from the White House restricting the public’s access to information.”

Similarly, LA Times editor Davan Maharaj said “the public has a right to know, and that means being informed by a variety of news sources, not just those filtered by the White House press office in hopes of getting friendly coverage.”

Oh, yeah, that’s right. The list of outlets actually allowed in included Breitbart, the alt-right garbage heap which just accepted a resignation from Milo Yiannopolous, and whose former head honcho Steve Bannon is now Trump’s chief political strategist. 

In light of all this, the White House Correspondent’s Association has vowed its opposition to today’s shitshow:

The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House. We … https://t.co/e6JkOOlwzQ

— WHCA (@whca) February 24, 2017

For all their derision of “safe spaces,” it certainly seems the most powerful political entity in America is refusing to handle even an iota of critical reporting.