Press Corps Puts Trump On Notice

This is America, not Russia - he doesn't get to play dictator.


An open letter to Trump from the US press corps
By Kyle Pope, Columbia Journalism Review
January 17, 2017

Dear Mr. President Elect:

In these final days before your inauguration, we thought it might be helpful to clarify how we see the relationship between your administration and the American press corps.

It will come as no surprise to you that we see the relationship as strained. Reports over the last few days that your press secretary is considering pulling news media offices out of the White House are the latest in a pattern of behavior that has persisted throughout the campaign: You’ve banned news organizations from covering you. You’ve taken to Twitter to taunt and threaten individual reporters and encouraged your supporters to do the same. You’ve advocated for looser libel laws and threatened numerous lawsuits of your own, none of which has materialized. You’ve avoided the press when you could and flouted the norms of pool reporting and regular press conferences. You’ve ridiculed a reporter who wrote something you didn’t like because he has a disability.

All of this, of course, is your choice and, in a way, your right. While the Constitution protects the freedom of the press, it doesn’t dictate how the president must honor that; regular press conferences aren’t enshrined in the document.

But while you have every right to decide your ground rules for engaging with the press, we have some, too. It is, after all, our airtime and column inches that you are seeking to influence. We, not you, decide how best to serve our readers, listeners, and viewers. So think of what follows as a backgrounder on what to expect from us over the next four years.

Related: Former Obama staffers launch Crooked Media

Access is preferable, but not critical. You may decide that giving reporters access to your administration has no upside. We think that would be a mistake on your part, but again, it’s your choice. We are very good at finding alternative ways to get information; indeed, some of the best reporting during the campaign came from news organizations that were banned from your rallies. Telling reporters that they won’t get access to something isn’t what we’d prefer, but it’s a challenge we relish.

Off the record and other ground rules are ours—not yours—to set. We may agree to speak to some of your officials off the record, or we may not. We may attend background briefings or off-the-record social events, or we may skip them. That’s our choice. If you think reporters who don’t agree to the rules, and are shut out, won’t get the story, see above.

We decide how much airtime to give your spokespeople and surrogates. We will strive to get your point of view across, even if you seek to shut us out. But that does not mean we are required to turn our airwaves or column inches over to people who repeatedly distort or bend the truth. We will call them out when they do, and we reserve the right, in the most egregious cases, to ban them from our outlets.

We believe there is an objective truth, and we will hold you to that. When you or your surrogates say or tweet something that is demonstrably wrong, we will say so, repeatedly. Facts are what we do, and we have no obligation to repeat false assertions; the fact that you or someone on your team said them is newsworthy, but so is the fact that they don’t stand up to scrutiny. Both aspects should receive equal weight.

We’ll obsess over the details of government. You and your staff sit in the White House, but the American government is a sprawling thing. We will fan reporters out across the government, embed them in your agencies, source up those bureaucrats. The result will be that while you may seek to control what comes out of the West Wing, we’ll have the upper hand in covering how your policies are carried out.

We will set higher standards for ourselves than ever before. We credit you with highlighting serious and widespread distrust in the media across the political spectrum. Your campaign tapped into that, and it was a bracing wake-up call for us. We have to regain that trust. And we’ll do it through accurate, fearless reporting, by acknowledging our errors and abiding by the most stringent ethical standards we set for ourselves.

Related: 12 images that capture the new reality show at Trump Tower

We’re going to work together. You have tried to divide us and use reporters’ deep competitive streaks to cause family fights. Those days are ending. We now recognize that the challenge of covering you requires that we cooperate and help one another whenever possible. So, when you shout down or ignore a reporter at a press conference who has said something you don’t like, you’re going to face a unified front. We’ll work together on stories when it makes sense, and make sure the world hears when our colleagues write stories of importance. We will, of course, still have disagreements, and even important debates, about ethics or taste or fair comment. But those debates will be ours to begin and end.

We’re playing the long game. Best-case scenario, you’re going to be in this job for eight years. We’ve been around since the founding of the republic, and our role in this great democracy has been ratified and reinforced again and again and again. You have forced us to rethink the most fundamental questions about who we are and what we are here for. For that we are most grateful.

Enjoy your inauguration.

—The Press Corps

http://www.cjr.org/covering_trump/trump_white_house_press_corps.php

(expected response from the thin-skinned orange one - "I never heard of CJR, a bunch of losers, a failed university, and the writer is ugly.")

 

Dear Press Corps

My twitter account is [MENTION=3512]real[/MENTION]DonaldTrump

Sorry lads, but money's tight and all, so the white house press briefings have been canceled.

 

Such self important ninnies to think they can order the POTUS around. No wonder their favorability rating is lower than whale dung.

 

So the press constantly lies and misrepresents facts, insults, and in most cases are just all around dirt bags...and since he does not want to have press because of it they compare him to a dictator....LOL.

 

I laughed at the part where he basically said we've learned our lesson and now we're going to have ethics and stringent standards.

It was an admission of guilt. But, for most of it ...

The whole thing reeked of arrogance and self importance. And there was the unmistakable threat.... Don't rock the boat. We network insiders like the status quo how it is.

I hope Trump rocks the boat.

 

Dear Press Corp,
As someone once famous said "elections have consequences", and after 8 long tortuous years I've come to believe it. So my advice would be to deal with it. Speaking for millions
gc17

 

That was a well written meltdown.

Bravo press corps.

 

trump wants to get more people in press breifings and move to a larger room so the ones who used to have a monopoly on access are freaking out.

 

No no, Trump big ninny. He big ninny man.

 

He knows they are but what is he?

 

Poor news reporters and all the rest of us for that matter.

In all my life I been so proud that unlike many other countries in the world we would never allowed a two bit dictator/conman to assume power nor would such a person be able to gather enough of a following to matter.

Sadly the election and the postings on this website/thread had proven me wrong on both counts.

I wonder how many years it will take to live down the shame and repair the harm done for electing Tramp to office.

Or more to the point will we have NATO or trading partners when the next four years come to an end.

News reporters might wish to go into a safer careers at least for the next four years.

Question does anyone know if Trump personal security wear brown shirts or not?

 

why are you against letting more of the press into the breifings? Why must Fox, NBC, and CNN have a hereditary monopoly on access to the president? Surely freedom of the press means freedom for all the press and not just the blessed few who have always had access to the press room.

Its a new age. Internet shows like the young turks or louder with crowder have proven to be as good if not more so than mainstream press and there are more of them now. Why can we not move to a bigger room to accomodate them?

 

I've highlighted what I consider to be the most significant sections of this note.

So a few comments.

(1) I'd love to know who the signatories are.

(2) The importance of the press remains a function of how fair and factual their coverage is. At this time, it's not very encouraging.

(3) The new president is making it abundantly clear that he doesn't need these jokers, no matter what they think.

(4) The jury is out as to what "higher standards" have been set, and whether we will see any real corrections to address the "widespread distrust" the American public feels justified in looking on the press with. While I hope to see "accurate, fearless reporting", I'm not holding my breath.

(5) Sorry, despite the obvious delusions of grandeur, debates about ethics or taste or fair comment are not for the press to begin and end. Nice try, though.

Exactly. I'm just happy I wasn't drinking something while reading that, lest I have something coming out my nose.

Yeah, sorry to have to break it to you, but the press briefings were instituted as a way to get information to the American people. Well guess what? In the 21st century, there are other ways of accomplishing this. Welcome to the new world order.

For those who may have slept through the recent election, the American people have elected a boat rocker for the express purpose of rocking the boat. To the members of the press: enjoy the ride...

Yup. Too bad, so sad. It'll be nice to open things up to press people who might not need to twist what's said to fit into a talking point. We'll see how it goes...

 

And they have a larger audience. The internet also makes the white house press corp redundant.

 

Yes indeed why have fact checking by real reporters when you can with the aid of your partner Putin put out any nonsense you care to directly to the people and have your followers/supporters echo them around the world.

How jealous would Joseph Goebbels be of this technology!!

Hell Trump does not even need the fox network.

 

Now that's funny , the Irrelevant lying press is going to tell the most powerful man in the world something. Hope trump tweets back : (*)(*)(*)(*) you!

 

You cats are a laugh a minute. See , this is why the press is irrelevant, you believe their garbage.

 

Where did I hear a new world order expression before?

Oh yes everyone from Woodrow Wilson and Hitler to the two Bushes and Obama.

 

Ok, maybe not a new world order, that term is too overloaded. Maybe a new press order. Things be changing, of that I am certain...

 

LOL, in other words, we had a lovefest with Obama for 8 years, we acted as the most partisan and vicious Hillary PAC during the campaign, we lied about you, we smeared you.... but now that you're president we're going to keep nitpicking, twisting and distorting every word of yours and depicting it in the most negative context possible because that's what we should have done during the last 8 years.

- - - Updated - - -

Because we fact checked them and they've proved to be disgusting partisan liars.

 

What a hoot. Actually it is the other way around. Trump says that if the MSM cant report the news straight forward, he will continue to go over their heads and use Twitter. He simply does not want what he says screwed with and taken out of context. Basically he has put them on notice to report the real news, not fake news.

 

The Press is putting Trump on notice? What are they going to do, start reporting with a negative bias? LOL

The truth is Trump has put the Press on notice..........they are no longer feared and new technologies have rendered them irrelevant.

 

Yes, what's your point? That's what every wannabe dictator does!

 

I remember them calling out Obama and Clinton for "bending the truth"

 

A liberal media temper tantrum as they are exposed for the hacks they are. I love it!