Donald Trump threatens to 'take away media's credentials' over negative news stories about him

originally posted by: bastion

originally posted by: BrennanHuff

So report the news from the lawn? Where did anyone say they wanted to ban ppl from publishing news reports?

Government Press conferences are used as propaganda world wide, the press are present at them to question the government, hold them to account, investigate claims, act as a wacthdog and fourth estate in a democracy and counterbalance what the government are saying and uncover any lies. The government are free to tell the public only what they want to tell them and issue unchallenged statements of 'facts'.

Denying the ability to do this or ask the president questions gives a greenlight for unquestioned propaganda with a government free to do whatever it wants as the public will never find out and all their votes and opinions don't matter anyway y that point as the pubic are denied any informed vote or knowledge of government actions.

By all means he can boycott giving interviews to certain news orgs and certainly wouldn't blame him (pretty sure most presidents do this, Obama did with Fox I think) but the conferences and white house briefings are a critical point of democracy and transparency in US politics.

So it is about feelings?

No it's nothing to do with feelings, you can't ask the president or or white house officials questions from the lawn, you can from the press rooms.

See my edit it lists the relevant Supreme Court cases, layer and constitutional experts opinions on the illegal denied their constitutional right to have access to a limited forum, freedom of the press and denial of

originally posted by: bastion
No it's nothing to do with feelings, you can't ask the president or or white house officials questions from the lawn, you can from the press rooms.

See my edit it lists the relevant Supreme Court cases, layer and constitutional experts opinions on the illegal denied their constitutional right to have access to a limited forum, freedom of the press and denial of

Please don't insult my intelligence.

How in the world does the case you cited have anything to do with barring in-subordinates at a white house presser?

Heres your case: The Respondent, Earl Mosely (Respondent), was convicted on a charge of disorderly conduct stemming from his picketing of Jones Commercial High School, in violation of a Chicago ordinance outlawing his conduct, but permitting the picketing of any school involved in a labor dispute.

Chicago adopted an ordinance prohibiting picketing within 150 feet of a school during school hours; the law made an exception for peaceful labor picketing. Mosley had been picketing near a public high school; he was protesting "black discrimination." Mosley sought a declaration that the ordinance was unconstitutional.

HOW IS THIS RELEVANT?

a reply to: darkbake

Awesome, remove all credentials from all bias fake news peddlers. Why aren't you for that?

originally posted by: BrennanHuff

HOW IS THIS RELEVANT?

It's a discussion about the Constitutional rights and restrictions on government trying to deny dissenting forces in the same forum.r The supreme court clarified government is not allowed to do exactly what Trump is trying to enact, government cannot deny speech in a public or selct forum, the can only do so in closed ones.

Labelling journalists performing their democratic duty of being the fourth estate as 'insubordinate' isn't wise. The whole reason the press are present at such things is to counteract government propaganda so democracy can function.

originally posted by: darkbakeAnd I am still under the opinion that the reasoning behind this isn't fake news, but the fact that CNN doesn't like Trump. And I think that is an immature reason to deny them access to press briefings.

Then your opinion is wrong. THIS is why some of us can't stand the fake news ....

At a Key Moment, Trump’s Top Diplomat Is Again Thousands of Miles Away

Senior State Department officials were momentarily speechless on Tuesday when asked why Mr. Pompeo did not delay his trip by a day to be in Washington during Mr. Trump’s Iran deal announcement. Mr. Pompeo left for Pyongyang on Monday night.

Then, in that same story, in tiny letters under a photo it says ...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to return from a trip to North Korea with three American detainees being held captive in the country.

So the NYT doesn't give a crap about bringing home Americans as soon as possible, let them rot a little longer ... or it was just a convenient story to take a jab at Trump when the story should actually be praising him.

If he hadn't waited the story would likely be that Trump made the Americans wait and he should have sent Pompeo out. No matter what happens they will run a negative story, because it's fake news designed to form an opinion not report facts.

a reply to: bastion

If that is the case then no one needs any credentials to begin with, being an American citizen is your credential. So your argument must be flawed.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: bastion

If that is the case then no one needs any credentials to begin with, being an American citizen is your credential. So your argument must be flawed.

It's not my argument it's the States and Supreme Courts interpretation of the law and enactment of the constitution.

I was a journo for 20 odd years and have a wardrobe of books on this very topic (painfully boring and equivalent of doing a politics and public admin MA and I'm a fully accredited NCTJ journalist. The US has USPA exams anthat need to be passed to get accreditted or gain access to press passes,

US citizens haven't passed accreditation standards, learn shorthand or the laws of reporting. They're not the fourth estate or an estate of any description nor a gatekeeper or watchdog or been security vetted or been through a single process that's allow them to legally claim access to the restricted forum.

If you read the post it lays out the legal and constitutional definition of the press briefing rooms as selective forums (based on being the press) and the constitution requirements of a free press and constitutional requirements of. The article itself has several more experts explaining the topic.

---
A presidential press briefing is not a public forum. The briefing is clearly not open to all members of the public. But, such an event can comfortably be understood as a limited forum where reporters from significant news outlets are invited as participants. In conferring access to this forum, government officials may limit the number of participants to ensure against overcrowding of the room where the event is being held. The officials might also create categorical criteria for exclusion (such as news outlets that publish on a daily basis or whose readership or viewing audience exceeds a certain number). They may even confine the discussion to certain topics. See Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, 473 U.S. 788 (1985). But what the government officials cannot do, consistent with the First Amendment, is to grant or deny access to news agencies or reporters based upon the views expressed by those individuals or publications. To do so, violates a neutrality principle that is basic to the First Amendment.

The Court’s adherence to this prohibition against viewpoint discrimination applies even beyond circumstances where government is regulating access to a forum and even when government officials attempt to mask their motives behind laws that appear to be facially neutral. Grosjean v. American Press Company, 297 U.S. 233 (1936) involved a Louisiana tax that singled out for special adverse treatment the newspapers in the State with the largest circulation. The tax did not identify the newspapers by name. It was imposed simply upon newspapers whose circulation exceeded 20,000. But, by no coincidence, these were the newspapers that were most critical of Louisiana’s governor, Huey Long. The Court looked behind the facial neutrality of the statute, finding the tax unconstitutional upon the ground that it had been enacted “for the purpose of penalizing the publishers of a . . . selected group of newspapers.” Here, again, the First Amendment was violated by the efforts of government officials to penalize expressive enterprises on the basis of viewpoint.
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originally posted by: bastion

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: bastion

If that is the case then no one needs any credentials to begin with, being an American citizen is your credential. So your argument must be flawed.

It's not my argument it's the States and Supreme Courts interpretation of the law and enactment of the constitution.

Great, then we can do away with all credentials. I don't know why you have a problem with it.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04

originally posted by: bastion

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: bastion

If that is the case then no one needs any credentials to begin with, being an American citizen is your credential. So your argument must be flawed.

It's not my argument it's the States and Supreme Courts interpretation of the law and enactment of the constitution.

Great, then we can do away with all credentials. I don't know why you have a problem with it.

Because America is meant to be Democracy and follow the constitution. The press pool (every journalist at these events works together to provide a balanced overview as required) control what information is released for broadcast or to the news media, the news organisations are then free to edit and disseminate this content as they wish to the public.

This would put Fox, Brietbart and Alex Jones in charge of deciding what the public are allowed to know about.

Press accreditation ensures journalists have passed exams in the legalities of what can be reported, the standards and ethical frameworks, required reading and sitting exams on a couple of hundred accedemic texts and legalise of reporting, the consitution, the entire political process from grassroots, local, county, state, federal, government levels and all between, the court system and far, far more besides.

Scrap any of that and America won't have a press capable of acting as the foruth estate and the public wont be informed on any issues.

Giving the president or any government official power to remove credentials is what dictatoral regimes do. The isn't a democracy in the world with state controlled media and never has been.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: blueman12

If anyone can't see the HUGE problem with what trump said, then you are too far gone. How can trump supporters be so blind?

Trump wants to silence his opposing party's media and meanwhile is constantly propping up his party's media (Fox News). If CNN and MSNBC are fake news, then FOX is too. Both are bias party propaganda.

Anyone who supporters the president on this is a true moron. How can anyone on ATS be so naive to support this?

Trump asked something you don't like. We get it. So why don't you just say "I do not like the question Trump asked"?

How silly, should all of our reactions boil down to like or dislikes (Facebook style)? Should we not argue for or against what Trump says?

Is trump stupifying people now?...

He's perfectly happy with pro trump speech just any discussion why it may be a bad thing is banned.

Could be a witty joke on Trump having called for North Korean government host feed control, and any criticism of Dear Leader is verbotten perhaps?

a reply to: bastion

Thanks for your information, I agree with it a lot. CNN is much more credible than Alex Jones or Breitbart. Fact.

originally posted by: darkbake
a reply to: bastion

Thanks for your information, I agree with it a lot. CNN is much more credible than Alex Jones or Breitbart. Fact.

Yeah there's only 12 positions available with the White House Correspondents Association nominating journalists for what is the most prestigious position in journalism worldwide. Those nominated are then put forward for government selection. Those 12 are in charge of capturing all audio, video, photographs and text of such an event, they then collate all this and make it available for worldwide news to use.

Trump is trying to scrap that constitutional process that ensures a fair representation. He's been arguing with them and making threats for months, this is just another attempt to try and garner public support for it.

Otherwise there's 'live' feed shot/released by government (the host party) and state captured and approved for release video, audio and text of these pivotal events.

If there isn't a representative group of journalists available there's an open door for collusion, conspiracy and everything people on ATS would generally be against.

Fortunately there are important stories which get covered.
www.foxnews.com...

originally posted by: Phage
Fortunately there are important stories which get covered.
www.foxnews.com...

It's currently the most popular story on the Fox news website. The general public are idiots.

a reply to: bastion

Who knew?

Well, sure why not, just implement a ministry of popular culture. That way we achieve consensus of the will of the people. Get away from all this political correct nonsense controlled by deep state. With those pesky Russians influencing our unsuspecting populous. We should prolly outlaw foreign news sources. Our private communications need to be strengthened as well so the "terrorists" don't hurt us and the Chinese can't "spy" on us. But don't worry we're going to "drain the swamp" and "make America great again"... Or was that Italy /sarc

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: darkbake

Awesome, remove all credentials from all bias fake news peddlers. Why aren't you for that?

First of all, you need to discriminate from biased news and delibrately fake news. CNN is biased, but they put an honest effort out there to base their news on facts.

Within the White House press pool, the whole point is to have a varied group of perspectives there. Both CNN and Fox News are biased, but by including them both, it becomes diverse.

Breitbart and Alex Jones, on the other hand, make little or no attempt to base their news in facts. Thus the term "fake news." Get your terms straight, man!

Fox News is credible enough that they could have press access, but definitely not Breitbart or Alex Jones.

But it's as you said - if you want to take the credentials from CNN, you have to take them from Fox. I am not for that, as I can see that both are biased, but not necessarily peddling fake news - although I do not think Fox News bases all of its stories on facts like CNN tries to, I will concede that they are credible enough. So I am not for taking press access from neither CNN or Fox News.